The 9H Foundation is a non-profit, charitable organization focused on being a hub for innovation, engaging students with practical research & applied projects, elevating the University of Wyoming, stimulating the local economy, & supporting students through awards, internships, competitions, projects, & scholarships.


Gene established and funds the 9H Research Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to supporting Wyoming students. Motivated by a desire to give back to the state and lifestyle that fostered his success, the foundation offers scholarships, internships, awards, and opportunities for real-world projects, competitions, and prototype building.


After a military (Army Chief Warrant Officer Four Master Aviator with 1,800+ combat hours in attack helicopters during two deployments in Vietnam and again in the first Desert Storm) and government career, Gene Humphrey founded several companies including International Test Solutions (ITS), a semiconductor wafer-test cleaning company. He served as President and CEO from 1998 until 2022, when he sold the company to CMC Materials. Gene was the main contributor to ITS’s technical portfolio as an inventor or co inventor of more than 70 US and international patents.

Our 9H SmartRanch projects and internships have produced geothermal stock tanks, automated agricultural drone projects, GIS entrepreneurship opportunities for students, a techno-economic analysis of the 9H solar facility, and an app to estimate cattle weight using images taken with a phone camera and a regression model. We’ve also built a 500kW, 1,200+ panel, 5-acre solar research facility for the benefit of UW with student input via senior design projects and energy competitions; the power sold from the 30-year life of the solar farm directly funds UW students.