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Project North | Turbocor


stjoe

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another great article..

http://www.bufflink.org/NewsText/374135977662037.html

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"Premier universities are at the heart of just about every high-tech success story: Stanford and Berkeley in the Silicon Valley; Boston-area institutions such as Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that helped draw entrepreneurs to the Route 128 corridor; the University of Texas and its support of Austin's booming computer industry.

North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, created in 1959, is built around Duke University, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University.

The research park, home to more than 100 research and development companies - along with a few dozen service companies - employs 42,000 people full time, with an annual payroll of more than $1 billion.

The No. 1 reason companies are attracted to the park is the proximity of the universities and the research going on there, said Jamie Nathanson Nunnelly, who grew up in Northeast Ohio and is the communications director for the Research Triangle Foundation.

But building a national reputation for quality research is a painstaking process. The North Carolina research park had three R&D firms in 1960, 20 such companies 10 years later, 40 by 1980, 66 by 1990 and 110 this year. "

If COT started today, it would be about 40 plus years behind much of it's competition.

"Grove said entrepreneurs look for the chance to locate near research that could turn into a good investment.

"What Berkeley has, what Stanford has, what Harvard and MIT have, is the high-powered research faculty that have these tremendous ideas that are worth starting companies over," he said.

An area rich in such ventures has "stickiness," said Ora Smith, president of Scitech, the Science and Technology Campus Corporation at OSU. "Sticky" is his term for places - Boston, the Bay area, Austin - where people get their educations and stay.

He said his adhesive factor also comes into play when recruiting top talent. "We need to somehow create this critical mass statewide so these people feel that if they join a risky enterprise and it doesn't work out, that there's another one just like it down the street," Smith said. "

"Mark Coticchia, of Case Western Reserve University, calls star professors the "sparkplugs" of economic development and likens endowed chairs to the compensation packages big business puts together to attract key executives.

Coticchia, now the vice president for research and technology management at CWRU, is a former venture capitalist, one of the people who prowl the corridors of premier research institutions looking for ideas worth investing in.

He said star researchers definitely prime the pump, but cautioned that economic benefits won't pour in overnight.

"We need to have patience and tenacity," said Coticchia. "It takes time."

One key to translating academic research into economic development is moving a discovery from a university lab to the marketplace. That's where Coticchia and his staff come in, part of a growing field encouraging professors to think about commercialization and then guiding them through the process. "

IMHO the COT had a window with Sandy was president at FSU (and University Park was his pet project) and FSU was rich in Taxol royalties which have now disappeared (along with an FSU president with any vision beyond athletics). I fear that time to make it happened because entities were fighting over control.

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:D The city on Wednesday gave 3.2 million dollars to EDC officials to lure in the montreal company. Tallahassee is now 1 of 2 communities vying for the 150 jobs the company promises to bring. If Tallahassee is chosen the company would like to build their own building possibly in Innovation Park. :thumbsup:

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee...ss/12136239.htm

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It appears we have the right "stuff" for this company. I mean they can do all of their research right there at THE National High Magnetic Field Lab, they have ample space to build in Innovation Park or the Airport Industrial park not too far away. Then there's the fact that Transportation would be nice to and from the facility given the immediate access to Capital Circle which smoothly moves traffic north to I-10. The Airport is just a stone's throw away so too are the Rail Roads and then there's the whole Southside of town, available labor pool thing. Things look good for our location, I was able to come up with those benifits off the top of my head with little effort.

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You know Im mad about the Zimmerman Agency selling out. They were the #1 PR firm in Florida right here in Tallahassee. I don't know what will become of Zimmerman as we know it, but Im afriad. They are responsible for the new City Logo (AKA my old Signature)

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Well Im not sure Im happy about the fact that we've "lost" the #1 PR firm... at least thats the feeling. Hopefully the name will go unchanged and the company will continue to operate as if under the same management. The last thing we need is to loose a great company like this.

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