Rural Innovation, Out Loud
GoldCast explores how innovation ecosystems are built, and celebrates the champions who make them possible. Real conversations from the ETSU Research Corporation, hosted by CEO David Golden.
Your host: David Golden
David A. Golden is the Chief Executive Officer of the ETSU Research Corporation and the Allen and Ruth Harris Chair of Excellence in ETSU's College of Business and Technology. He was named CEO in January 2021, when ETSU President Brian Noland launched the Corporation.
Before ETSU, David spent his career at Eastman Chemical Company, the Fortune 500 materials innovation company headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee. He retired in 2019 as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal and Sustainability Officer, and Corporate Secretary, with responsibility spanning legal, sustainability, government relations, public policy, communications, and community affairs.
He completed Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program and holds a B.S. in Accounting and a Juris Doctorate from Brigham Young University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and Order of the Coif. His interests, economic development, STEM education, sustainability, synthetic biology, and complexity science, are the same threads GoldCast pulls on. He is also a co-founder of ReOrigin, a science-based firm that helps organizations understand climate risk and shape strategy.
GoldCast explores how innovation ecosystems are built—and celebrates the champions who make them possible.
About GoldCast
GoldCast is the storytelling and thought leadership platform of the ETSU Research Corporation. Every thriving region runs on an innovation ecosystem: entrepreneurs, researchers, educators, investors, industry leaders, public officials, philanthropists, and community builders working together to create opportunity. Those ecosystems, and the champions who build them, rarely get much visibility.
Breakthroughs rarely come from one brilliant person. They happen because inventors, researchers, investors, and civic leaders work together, with champions opening doors, connecting people, and removing barriers along the way. Through candid conversations, GoldCast shares the people, partnerships, and ideas that turn research into impact, talent into opportunity, and regions into places where innovation can thrive.
Stanford is known for entrepreneurship. MIT for technology. GoldCast is claiming innovation ecosystems: how they are built, and who builds them. Founders, faculty, students, policymakers, and investors are all part of the conversation.
Our conversations explore
People
- Champions
- Entrepreneurs
- Researchers
- Students
- Leaders
Ideas
- Innovation ecosystems
- Commercialization
- Emerging technologies
- Workforce development
Places
- Rural competitiveness
- Regional transformation
- Public-private partnerships
- Community building
Innovation doesn’t just need more ideas. It needs more champions.
Every breakthrough has a champion. Behind every discovery, startup, thriving community, and innovation ecosystem is someone who believed before others did. Champions use their credibility, relationships, influence, and persistence to open doors, build trust, connect people, and remove barriers that others cannot.
GoldCast celebrates those champions. And anyone can be one: a teacher championing a student, a business leader championing a startup, a public official championing a community.
New episodes, on the way
Season one is in production. GoldCast is rolling out its first season this fall. Check back for new conversations as they drop, and for Research Corporation updates between episodes.
Whom can I champion?
Innovation is not accidental. It emerges where talented people, strong institutions, shared purpose, and committed champions come together. GoldCast exists to explore those intersections, celebrate the people who make innovation possible, and send every listener back out asking one question.