Troika hopes to hatch new businesses

Business incubators—companies that find ideas and give them the managerial backing to turn them into new ventures—are hot in the world of Internet startups, but nothing similar has existed in the optoelectronics field. Now three industry experts have teamed up to form New Incubator (Mountain View, CA), which will provide capital and management expertise to launch new companies.

The group consists of Milton Chang, chairman of New Focus (Santa Clara, CA), Tom Baer, president and CEO of Arcturus Engineering (Mountain View, CA), and Bill Nighan, who is leaving his position as director of engineering at Spectra-Physics Lasers (Mountain View, CA) to head the company.