AMTEX-A CRADA FOR ALL SEASONS?: Participant enthusiasm, focus on industrywide goals characterize 'orphan' partnership in textiles

Many government programs, critics say, often look like turkeys— and, on deeper examination, they really are. One federal technology transfer program, however, has all the ungainly looks of a turkey but turns out to more resemble a swan. The American Textile Partnership (AMTEX) is a program between federal energy laboratories and the textile industry. It is shaky bureaucratically and was almost dead for a while. But the industry loves it because, in fact, the industry invented it. AMTEX basically is a big, multiproject, cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) involving several of the Department of Energy's national laboratories and a consortium of companies that compose the entire textile industry— from the spinning of synthetic fibers through dyeing and finishing, weaving and knitting, cutting and sewing, and finally marketing and selling AMTEX is about using the computerized simulation models developed for nuclear testing at the national labs and applying them to tracking the intricate pro...