Innovation Square Office–Zeeko Ltd., renovation/build-out by The D.E. Scorpio Corporation for Trimark Properties
Florida Gator UF Alumni Association Fall 2014
Article from “Florida Gator” UF Alumni Association Magazine:
International Innovation
UF Alumnus Arthur Gaziano Opens Research Facility in Innovation Square
By Briana Erickson (2JM)
Zeeko Ltd., a UK-based company that creates precision polishing machines, has joined close to 40 other companies in Innovation Square. The company opened the Gainesville research facility in early summer, says Ed Poppell, economic development director of Innovation Square.
“The research coming out of the University of Florida is what drew our attention to Gainesville. We are excited about collaborating with the university as well as reaching out to our customers in the U.S. market in order to draw additional interest in Zeeko machines,” says Arthur Graziano (MS ’10, PhD ’13), the manager of research and director of the company’s Gainesville facility. Graziano began working for Zeeko in its England, Wales and Japan locations soon after her graduation. Now located only four blocks from campus, Zeeko hopes to enhance its company by collaborating with the associate professor Hitomi Yamaguchi Greenslet and graduate student in the UF Center for manufacturing Innovation who is doing research on magnetic abrasive finishing, a technology that Zeeko wanted to incorporate in to its existing products.
Poppell explains that the integration of this facility, like others, means new jobs for the community. And that’s why, Poppell says, Innovation Square recruited Zeeko and companies like it to help Gainesville grow its economy.
“We hope that a lot of young, thriving companies will continue to move to Innovation Square,” he says.
