“When I was growing up in India, the central government
was putting forth a five-year plan. There were many
development plans throughout the country. It was an
exciting time to be in engineering,” Srinivasan
reminisces. He went from teaching in Bangalore to
following a close friend and mentor to Princeton for
further studies in aerospace engineering.
“I came to work in Connecticut to work in industry,
first for Command Aircraft Corp. in Bloomfield, then for
Pratt, then UTC.” At United Technologies Corp., he
focused on work related to components of turbomachinery,
propeller fans, helicopters, elevators, compressors and
other products. He has taught at institutions including
the University of Connecticut, Yale University,
Rensselaer at Hartford, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
University of Florida, and University of Iowa.
Innovation is a subject Srinivasan is obviously
passionate about. “I developed courses on technological
innovation at Rensselaer in Hartford, and I was the
first to develop these courses. No enterprise will
succeed without that element of innovation, but it’s
risky, it takes passion and courage to do innovative
work,” he says.
Srinivasan believes his position at Connecticut
Innovations will enable him to emphasize the need to
take on risks across the state. “That’s my role: to
somehow make sure the board, which is made up highly
qualified, experienced people from around the state,
focuses on enhancing the state’s capability to do
advanced scientific and technological work which
involves an element of risk,” Srinivasan explains.
Connecticut Innovations is the state’s quasi-public
authority responsible for technology investing and
innovation development.
His focus will be on any innovative company, no matter
how small. “If someone has a bright idea, we’ll look at
it very carefully and see if it has merit to become a
good business venture that adds jobs to Connecticut. If
so, we’ll support that program. The key is to increase
the number of jobs in innovative ventures throughout the
state,” Srinivasan explains.
The organization funds enterprises in various
industries, from energy and transportation systems to
materials engineering, aerospace, health care, and
information technology. “These are the areas in which
we’re desperately looking for people interested in
trying out their ideas,” he elaborates. “For instance,
the main limitation to electric car development is
battery technology. Entrepreneurial efforts to develop
better batteries are needed,” Srinivasan expounds.
A resident here since 1966, Srinivasan has very close
ties to the Indian community that began with the launch
of the India Association of Greater Hartford in 1966. He
also co-founded the Middletown temple in 1979, which was
sanctified in 1999. In 2006 he founded the Raga Club,
which sponsors numerous annual concerts featuring
musicians traveling here from India. “I’m a sort of a
music student myself,” he laughs. He’s particularly
proud of the Raga Club’s co-sponsorship of an annual
concert with Wesleyan University. “We help with the
music festival in October, the Navaratri festival,” he
says proudly.
Srinivasan has been a board member of the World Affairs
Center of Greater Hartford and a member of the Joint
Indo-U.S. Committee on Aeronautics set up by the prime
minister of India. He also holds a U.S. patent in the
area of vibration control through shape memory alloys.
His awards and honors include receiving the Connecticut
Immigrant Award for 1999 and the International Scholar
Award for 1997 from the International Gas Turbine
Institute of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers.
A resident of Glastonbury, he is married to Kamala and
has two daughters. “Asha is pursuing her PhD in
Anthropology, and Sandhya is a school psychologist. They
both live in Glastonbury,” says Srinivasan. His
interests are so varied that he even found time to
become a Justice of the Peace, performing several Hindu
weddings each year. “Did I tell you I published a book
on this subject?” he asks.
