Michael Carnes

Mike Carnes is a Technology Commercialization Counselor at the North Carolina SBTDC, a business development service of The University of North Carolina. Mike supports the SBTDC’s technology development and commercialization initiatives by providing business counseling, training, grant and equity capital formation support to NC entrepreneurs and small businesses. Mike has regional SBTDC responsibility, representing forty counties from the Research Triangle to the coast. He is known for his passion in helping businesses commercialize science and technology to solve real problems for real people. Mike also enjoys identifying and connecting entrepreneurs to statewide resources, helping them along the path to commercialization.

Mike earned a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology in 2006, a Professional Science Master’s in Microbial Biotechnology in 2012, and a Master’s in Business Administration with an emphasis in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in 2013 from North Carolina State University. During his graduate education, he worked with a variety of hi-tech startups helping to drive strategic decision making and business planning. Before that time, Mike used his scientific and analytic skills as a bench researcher at a large agricultural biotechnology firm and NCSU’s Department of Plant Pathology.