Calvin Goforth, PhD

Calvin Goforth, PhD, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, has extensive experience in start-up company development in founder, investor, board member, and executive roles. In these roles, he has raised tens of $millions in capital, helped bring several high value products from concept to market, and helped bring multiple companies to exit events.

He received a BS in Aerospace Engineering with Highest Honors from the University of Texas at Austin. Early in his career, Dr. Goforth held positions at NASA (where he worked alternate semesters while pursuing his BS) and Rocketdyne, where he worked in the space shuttle main engine performance analysis group.

He later received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He then returned to his home state of Arkansas and took a position as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arkansas. There, he received the school’s Halliburton Outstanding Researcher Award in Mechanical Engineering for three straight years.

He left his faculty position to form a startup company. Goforth self-financed the company and released its first product in one year. Product sales ramped up quickly and the company was sold at the end of its second year of operations. Dr. Goforth’s experiences with that company and other early-stage technology companies that he later consulted with led him to found VIC Tech.

At VIC, he developed the company’s virtual enterprising business model to support the formation and development of life science start-up companies including medical device, diagnostics, and therapeutics companies. Dr. Goforth also founded and manages the VIC Investor Network that provides seed capital for VIC portfolio companies.