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RTI International Opens $14M Expansion of Pilot Xcelerator to Help Innovators Scale Promising New Energy and Industrial Technologies

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$14M expansion doubles RTI’s commercialization infrastructure.Pilot Xcelerator platform helps innovators prove performance at pilot scale and reduce technology investment risk.Investment expands capacity in North Carolina to support startups, commercial companies and government partners.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Moving a breakthrough technology from the laboratory to commercial deployment remains one of the biggest challenges facing energy and industrial innovators. To help close that gap, RTI International, an independent scientific research institute, today opened a significant expansion of its RTI Pilot Xcelerator, an innovation and commercialization platform designed to help tough-tech innovators prove performance at pilot scale, reduce commercialization risk and accelerate deployment.

The $14 million expansion on RTI’s campus, in the heart of Research Triangle Park, gives innovators access to pilot infrastructure, engineering expertise, independent scientific validation and commercialization support to help bridge the gap between laboratory innovation and commercial deployment. The 25,000-square-foot facility doubles RTI’s commercialization infrastructure and is designed to generate the performance data and operational experience needed to move technologies closer to market.

“The RTI Pilot Xcelerator reflects our commitment to helping innovators move breakthrough technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace,” said Tim J. Gabel, president and CEO of RTI. “It’s an investment in innovation, commercialization and the future growth of our region and beyond.”

The expansion strengthens RTI’s ability to support technology commercialization in North Carolina—the Pilot Xcelerator is the only privately owned industrial pilot laboratory in the state—and provides startups, commercial companies and government partners with access to pilot-scale infrastructure that can be difficult and costly to build independently. 

Beyond pilot testing, RTI helps innovators navigate the path to commercialization through independent validation, market insights and deployment planning. This support is designed to reduce risk and accelerate adoption across a range of sectors from energy to sustainable chemicals and materials to industrial biotechnology. 

“Access to pilot-scale infrastructure can be one of the biggest barriers to commercialization,” said David Dausch, Ph.D., vice president of engineering and advanced technology at RTI. “The Pilot Xcelerator gives innovators a place to prove performance, generate real-world data and reduce risk without having to build that capability themselves.”

RTI supports demonstration and scale-up efforts across industries including sustainable aviation fuel, carbon capture, critical minerals and advanced recycling for plastics and other materials. RTI Pilot Xcelerator examples include:

Syzygy Plasmonics: Successfully demonstrated a greenhouse gas-reforming process that converts carbon dioxide and methane to produce low-carbon aviation fuel and is now building a commercial plant to create a scalable alternative to conventional jet fuel.CarbonBridge: Planning is underway to test a waste-to-value bioprocessing technology that uses microbes to convert methane into methanol, transforming waste greenhouse gases into valuable fuels and chemicals, which could have broad applications across industries.Aether Fuels: Demonstrating a technology that converts waste carbon feedstocks into sustainable aviation fuel, generating the operational data needed to support commercial-scale deployment to reduce carbon in the aviation industry.Lydian Labs: Successfully demonstrated a power-to-liquids technology that combines captured carbon dioxide, water and renewable electricity to produce sustainable aviation fuel. They are targeting a commercial-scale demonstration plant in 2027 and full-scale production by 2030.

Space is available for innovators interested in partnering with RTI experts to accelerate new technologies. Contact the RTI Pilot Xcelerator team.

Learn more about how RTI helps innovators scale promising new energy and industrial technologies at its Pilot Xcelerator

Five questions to ask before scaling your technology

Blog: Transforming Energy Innovations through Scale-up and Commercialization

Access the RTI Pilot Xcelerator media kit

About RTI International
RTI International is an independent scientific research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. Our vision is to address the world’s most critical problems with technical and science-based solutions in pursuit of a better future. Clients rely on us to answer questions that demand an objective and multidisciplinary approach—one that integrates expertise across social, statistical, data, and laboratory sciences, engineering, and other technical disciplines to solve the world’s most challenging problems. For more information, visit www.rti.org.

Media Contact:
RTI International Media Relations
919-541-7300
422347@email4pr.com 

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RealNex Releases Major Navigator Enhancements to Power the Next Generation of CRE Brokerage Performance

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New release expands RealNex Navigator with KRM, RealNex Insights, RealNex Vault, RealNex Bridge, MarketEdge enhancements, and CRE Marketing Hub AI tools.

STAFFORD, Texas, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — RealNex, a commercial real estate technology company, today announced a major release of updates and enhancements to RealNex Navigator, its integrated platform for commercial real estate professionals.

The release includes the evolution of RealNex CRM into KRM — Knowledge and Relationship Management, embedded RealNex Insights Power BI dashboards, the launch of RealNex Vault, the upgraded RealNex Bridge transaction workflow, enhanced MarketEdge analysis and presentation tools, and CRE-trained AI tools powered through CRE Marketing Hub.

Together, the enhancements make RealNex Navigator a more connected platform for managing knowledge, sharpening strategy, and activating execution across the full CRE deal cycle. The result is what RealNex calls The CRE Intelligence Advantage: a more effective way to make brokerage knowledge measurable, visible, and actionable.

“Commercial real estate has always been a knowledge business — and the broker who knows their market deepest wins. Every AI tool in the world cannot change that. What we have built changes something more fundamental: it makes that knowledge measurable, visible, and actionable at a scale no individual broker could achieve alone.”

— Mark Kingston, Executive Chairman, RealNex

KRM reflects the reality that CRE professionals manage more than contacts. They manage properties, markets, companies, owners, tenants, activity, assignments, and transaction history. RealNex Insights turns live KRM data into Power BI dashboards covering pipeline health, market inventory, financial performance, production activity, and business development performance.

RealNex Vault is a purpose-built virtual deal room for commercial real estate, with staged bidder progression, tiered access, NDA e-signature, dynamic watermarking, two-factor authentication, audit trails, and bidder engagement analytics. Vault is included at no additional charge for MarketEdge and Navigator subscribers.

RealNex Bridge, formerly Transaction Manager, now includes a redesigned interface, nationwide commercial property database, direct MarketPlace and KRM integration, enhanced proposal comparison, and one-click branded PDF tour books.

MarketEdge enhancements include a refreshed UI, widget-based design editor, auto-sizing text, expanded demographics, and enhanced sale-leaseback and lease vs. buy reports.

CRE Marketing Hub AI tools are available to support property and market analysis, business development strategy, targeted marketing plans, content creation, underwriting and investment analysis, social media messaging, and video scripting.

All updates are live for RealNex subscribers as of September 9, 2026.

About RealNex

RealNex is a commercial real estate technology company providing an integrated platform including KRM — Knowledge and Relationship Management — MarketEdge, RealNex Bridge, RealNex Vault, and RealNex Insights, with AI tools powered through a partnership with CRE Marketing Hub. RealNex serves brokerage firms, leasing professionals, tenant representatives, investment sales teams, and property owners across the United States and internationally.

Media Contact: Sara Perez • 281.299.3161 • 416191@email4pr.comrealnex.com 

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97% of America’s Red-Eye Flights Take Off in the West, and Overnight Flying Is at a Record High, 26 Years of Federal Data Show

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Champion Traveler analysis of every US domestic flight since 2000 finds red-eyes concentrated in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, growing, and more reliable than daytime flights

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah, Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — About one in sixty US domestic flights is a red-eye, and 97 percent of them take off in the western United States, according to a new Champion Traveler analysis of 26 years of Bureau of Transportation Statistics flight records.

The study counted every scheduled domestic flight reported to the federal government from 2000 through 2025 and classified as a red-eye any flight scheduled to depart between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. and land between 3 a.m. and 10 a.m. local time. In 2025, 115,580 of 6.9 million flights met that definition.

Key findings:

Red-eyes are a western phenomenon. 97 percent of 2025’s overnight flights departed from the Pacific and Mountain states plus Alaska and Hawaii, a share that has never fallen below 95 percent since 2000.The red-eye is at a record high. Overnight flights grew 54 percent, from 75,158 in 2000 to 115,580 in 2025, after a low in 2009 and a collapse in 2020.Anchorage is the red-eye capital by share: 26 percent of its departures are overnight flights. Los Angeles leads by count with 19,064. Las Vegas flew the most red-eyes in America in 2000, lost more than half by 2010, and has since recovered.The middle-of-the-night departure is disappearing. Flights leaving after midnight were 31 percent of red-eyes in 2000 and 14 percent in 2025.The legacy airlines lost the overnight market. American, Delta and United flew 97 percent of red-eyes in 2000 and 64 percent in 2025. Alaska Airlines is now the most red-eye-heavy carrier, and Southwest, which flew none for 25 years, took 5.6 percent of the market in its first year.Red-eyes are more reliable. In 2025, 82.4 percent arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, against 77.6 percent of other flights, and they were cancelled less often.

The geography has a simple cause. An overnight flight from the West Coast crosses three time zones and lands on the East Coast at breakfast; the same trip westbound would land in the middle of the night, so airlines schedule almost no overnight flights in that direction. Among the 300 busiest red-eye routes in the study, 82 percent land in the Central or Eastern time zones.

The full study, with a sortable table of every US airport’s red-eye departures in 2000, 2010, 2019 and 2025, airline shares back to 2000, departure hours, seasonality and reliability, is at https://championtraveler.com/news/red-eye-flights-share-of-us-flights/. Journalists can request data for any airport, airline or route.

About Champion Traveler: Champion Traveler publishes data-driven travel research, including the Best Time to Travel tool covering more than 35,000 destinations, the Air Quality Travel Index and the Flyover States study. Champion Traveler is operated by Terra Lake Data, an enterprise data company.

Media contact: Edwin Ivanauskas, (385) 462-2956, 422341@email4pr.com 

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SOURCE Champion Traveler

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Rentvine Names Nat Kunes as CEO as Its AI Platform Enters Its Next Chapter

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The fastest-growing property management software in the single-family rentals industry strengthens its leadership team as it enters its next phase of growth.

ESTERO, Fla., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Rentvine, the fastest-growing property management software in the single-family rentals industry, today announced Nat Kunes as Chief Executive Officer, effective September 9. Kunes will lead company strategy and assume day-to-day leadership, building on the AI and open foundation Rentvine has already established with its recent launch of MCP and Pro Skills. Rentvine founder, Dave Borden will continue as a hands-on member of the leadership team and board of directors, closely involved in Rentvine’s vision, and industry relationships.

“We’re building the experience property managers deserve. The company’s focus on actively listening to property managers and executing based on their needs is rare, and it’s the foundation I get to build on as we push further into what AI can do for this industry.”

Nat Kunes brings a rare combination of experience: more than 20 years of product leadership, including at one of the largest property management software providers in the industry, paired with a track record of leading AI software organizations through their accelerated growth stages. That blend is precisely what Rentvine has been building in its next chapter, with that vision already taking shape inside the platform.

“What drew me to Rentvine was that our product, support, and culture already set the standard,” said Kunes. “We’re not running a predefined playbook. We’re building the experience property managers deserve. The company’s focus on actively listening to property managers and executing based on their needs is rare, and it’s the foundation I get to build on as we push further into what AI can do for this industry.”

“As founder, this company has always been my passion, and that’s not changing,” said Dave Borden. “Nat’s experience within property management will undoubtedly extend Rentvine’s industry leadership in AI. I will focus on the industry relationships, strategy, and culture, all near and dear to me, as we build our next chapter.”

“Adding Nat to our leadership team alongside Dave and me is exactly the kind of move that helps our customers win,” said Jonathan Ewen, Co-Founder and President of Rentvine. “He shares our commitment to the Herd, and having all three of us driving the business forward means we can move faster without losing what makes Rentvine, Rentvine.”

Rentvine’s product, team, and commitments to property managers remain unchanged. While Borden remains active in the business, Kunes will work alongside Borden and Ewen to make sure employees, customers, and partners continue to receive the same experience they’ve always received from Rentvine.

About Rentvine

Rentvine is the fastest-growing property management software in the single-family rentals industry. Built for property managers who want to scale with confidence and clarity, we deliver the best trust accounting in property management, giving operators unmatched accuracy, visibility, and control over their financials. From leasing, maintenance, and CRM tools to owner reporting and performance analytics, everything lives in one modern, AI-connected platform with an open API.

To learn more, visit www.rentvine.com.

Media Contact

Chris Brasher, Rentvine, 1 888-597-2611, chris.brasher@rentvine.com, www.rentvine.com

View original content:https://www.prweb.com/releases/rentvine-names-nat-kunes-as-ceo-as-its-ai-platform-enters-its-next-chapter-302875032.html

SOURCE Rentvine

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