Cover Story
Jay Apt
Chief technologist, iNetworks
Smart Business Pittsburgh | January 2002
Former astronaut Jay Apt is taking off again, this time with a venture capital firm.
Apt, a four-time NASA astronaut and a former academic and director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History is now helping early stage technology companies commercialize their ideas with iNetworks.
iNetworks focuses on seed, start-up and early stage equity positions, mostly in the technology intensive fields of information security, Internet infrastructure and other opportunities.
Apt, who was born in Springfield, Ill., but spent most of his early years in Pittsburgh, returned to the city in 1997 to take the job of director at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
He's likely to be anything but a wallflower as a venture capitalist. He made three tries to become an astronaut, and shook up the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, benchmarking it against the best museums in the world and filling the exhibits with interactive technology.
Ray Marano
