After retiring from the Air Force in 2009, Scott Allen knew that he wanted to turn his expertise into a business.

The former military officer helped create tracking methods and mechanisms that the government uses to trace illicit funding sources. Allen, who has also helped manage Fortune 1000 companies, showed others how to follow the money in order to find illicit entities and disrupt their activities.

Allen grew up as a Navy brat, but his mother was from the Murray area, and he went to elementary school and high school in Kentucky, as well as the University of Kentucky for undergraduate school.

“I wanted to stimulate the economy in my home state instead of somewhere else,” he says.

With help from the regional business incubator at Murray State University and a $30,000 grant from Kentucky Science and Technology Corp., he has been able to grow Wisdom Tree Technologies from three employees in 2009 to 20 at the end of 2011. He expects the staff to double by the end of 2012. The Murray-based business helps train government employees nationwide about how to find clues. The tracking methods are applicable to private businesses, too, Allen says, where they can help identify hidden patterns.

He has taken advantage of space at the Murray incubator, which is run by Loretta Daniel, as well as a wealth of advice.

“Any entrepreneur that thinks the economic times are hard, what they should realize is that people like Loretta and the Kentucky Small Business Development Center and the state are supportive and want to help people build jobs,” Allen says.