Posted by Heidi Schwartz

Gov. Steve Beshear joined company and local officials at Kobe Aluminum Automotive Products LLC in Bowling Green, KY to break ground on the company’s second expansion in recent months. Kobe Aluminum plans to add an 87,000-square-foot building, resulting in 100 new, full-time jobs and a capital investment of up to $66 million.

The news comes on the heels of another expansion announcement at the plant. In November 2012, Gov. Beshear and company officials announced Kobe Aluminum would invest $11 million in Bowling Green for the construction of a new 39,000-square-foot building on One Kobe Way in Bowling Green, creating 15 new, full-time jobs.

“I was fortunate to be here in November to announce a significant expansion for Kobe Aluminum, but this one is even better, with 100 more jobs and a $66 million investment on the way,” said Gov. Beshear. “We are proud to have Kobe here in the Commonwealth and especially happy to see the company’s continued growth and success.”

Kobe Aluminum Automotive Products LLC, a joint venture of Kobe Steel Ltd., Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and Toyota Tsusho Corporation, has been a corporate citizen in south central Kentucky since 2005. The plant currently has more than 270 full-time employees and has invested more than $100 million in its Bowling Green facility since opening its doors.

There are 11 Kobe Steel subsidiaries in the United States, but the Bowling Green location is the only U.S. facility to forge aluminum suspension products for the automotive industry. The new, 87,000-square-foot addition makes room for new furnaces, casting machines, forging presses and advanced presses used to meet increasing demand for high-quality precision aluminum components for the automobile industry.

“Kobe Steel had many options when we decided to establish this business in Bowling Green,” said Susumu (Sam) Koike, KAAP president and CEO. “We have had great experiences working in Kentucky, and we have never regretted our decision. The Commonwealth made the decision for additional investment easy by offering financial incentives. I assure you, we do not take these incentives for granted and will do our best to fulfill our employment obligations to make this incentive program both a business success for KAAP and an economic success for Kentucky.”

“We are excited to break ground and expand our operations in south central Kentucky once again,” said Gregory Head, KAAP corporate secretary. “KAAP has grown and prospered here because Kentucky understands our needs and respects our customers. We look forward to many more years of collaboration with state and local officials and opening new opportunities for the exceptional people we are fortunate to employ. Our desire is to become a preferred employer in south central Kentucky.”

To encourage the additional investment and job growth in Bowling Green, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) preliminarily approved the company for tax incentives up to $300,000 through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act (KEIA), which allows approved companies to recoup Kentucky sales and use tax on construction costs, building fixtures, equipment used in research and development and electronic processing equipment.

Kobe Aluminum previously received preliminary approval for its initial expansion project in the amount of $325,000 through the Kentucky Business Investment program, which is expected to be increased at the time of final approval to reflect the increased job growth and investment. A separate KEIA approval in the amount of $144,000 was also previously granted.

“I am thrilled with the latest expansion for Kobe, it affirms our community as a central automotive supplier,” said Sen. Mike Wilson, of Bowling Green. “We are blessed with great geography and even better people.”

“Our community has been fortunate over the years to play a major role in Kentucky’s automotive industry, and companies like Kobe Aluminum Automotive Products are the main reason why,” said Rep. Jody Richards, of Bowling Green. “I cannot thank its leaders enough for investing so much, and for the faith they have put into our second-to-none workforce.”

“Kobe has been a great corporate citizen for the past eight years, and we look forward to continuing this relationship long into the future,” said Bowling Green Mayor Bruce Wilkerson. “We congratulate them on their decision to expand here again and send well wishes for their continued growth.”

“It’s another great day in south central Kentucky when we can announce an expansion project like this one at Kobe,” said Warren County Judge-Executive Michael Buchanon. “This company is a great example of how businesses thrive in our region, and we thank them for continuing to invest here.”

The post Kobe Aluminum In Bowling Green, KY Breaks Ground On Second Expansion appeared first on Business Facilities.

Scripps Research Institute in Palm Beach, FL

By Stefanie Ramsperger and Jack Rogers
From the March/April 2013 issue

The recovery in the biotech sector appears to be solidifying. According to the most recent biotechnology report published by Ernst & Young, the sales in established biotech markets grew more than 10 percent in 2012. This threshold hasn’t been crossed since the outbreak of the worldwide financial crisis. Expenditures for research and development significantly increased by 9 percent.

About $33.4 billion in venture capital was raised in the sector. However, mostly big enterprises profited from this inflow whereas small- and medium-sized companies still have to suffer from a depletion of seed money since the Recession. In contrast to the U.S., financing in Europe has not regained the levels seen prior to the financial crisis. A retreat in the public markets in 2011 resulted in overall financing levels that are back to those seen in 2008, reflecting the continuing struggles of the Eurozone countries over the sovereign debt of some member countries.

While the biotechnology sectors of Eurozone countries are relatively small, the uncertainty has driven investors across the continent to seek lower risk. One bright spot is that, similar to the U.S., Europe has seen venture capital hold relatively steady. Across Europe, there were 56 venture rounds of greater than $5 million (down from 65 in 2010). The most significant venture capital transactions included $39 million raised by Symphogen (Denmark), $99 million raised by Biocartis (Switzerland) and $96 million raised by Circassia (United Kingdom). Biotech accounts for approximately 15 percent of total venture capital investment across Europe, a slightly higher percentage than in the U.S. in 2011.

In Europe the list of commercial leaders—Actelion, Elan Corp., Eurofins Scientific, Ipsen, Meda, Novozymes, Qiagen and Shire—has not changed since 2007. In 2011, the revenues of these commercial leaders increased by 19 percent, while those of the other companies decreased by an identical percentage. The same pattern was repeated across all the major indicators, with the health of a few large companies increasing as the rest of the industry saw its performance worsen.

In this year’s Global Biotech Report, we zero in on several locations in Europe that are well-positioned for future success, including three biotech hubs in Germany and key biotech/ pharma centers in Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg that have strengthened their competitive position in the global market in recent years. As always, we also take a fresh look at the leading biotech and pharmaceutical hubs in the U.S.

Hessen Keeps Getting Bigger In Biotech/Pharma

Biotech is among the most important sectors of the Hessen region and this sector is growing every year. With Frankfurt recognized as the financial capital of Germany, the area is well known for its excellence in the service sector. However, the region also excels in manufacturing industries, and it is Germany’s logistics gateway to the world.

More than 19,500 people are employed in the biotech/pharma sector in Hessen. The area has 225 biotech companies (of which 59 are core biotech concerns), and 14 percent of these employ at least 500 people. In the last decade, Hessian biotech companies have more than doubled their revenues to over 5.2 billion Euros.

The strength of Hessen’s biotech sector are a multitude of R&D programs, its number of industry patents and its domination in the medical sector of biotechnology—known as “red” biotech, accounting for 81 percent of all Hessian biotech revenues (according to the latest Location Study Hessen-Biotech, which was commissioned by Hessen’s location marketing organization, Hessen Trade and Invest GmbH). However, industrial biotechnology (“white” biotechnology) is on the rise. About 56 percent of all biotech companies in Hessen have their own R&D programs.

White biotechnology is located at the interfaces of chemistry, biology and the engineering sciences. “It uses microorganisms and enzymes to create new substances and processes for the purpose of producing innovation for many different user sectors, for example amino acids, vitamins and aromas for the food industries,” explains Dr. Thomas Niemann, Director Technology and Future at Hessen Trade and Invest GmbH.

The biotech/pharma activities in Hessen center around two clusters: one is located in Central Hessen, the other is in the southern part of the State. Hessen is a stronghold in biotech production. Out of a total capacity of more than 830,000 liters of fermentation production in the manufacture of “red” biotech in Germany, more than 250,000 liters are attributed to Hessen. Production takes place in Frankfurt (sanofi-aventis), Marburg (Novartis- Behring), and Hanau (Heraeus).

Höchst Industrial Park in Frankfurt is one of Europe’s largest chemical and pharmaceutical parks and looks back to almost 150 years of chemistry tradition. Just in 2012, tenants invested 310 Million Euros, bringing the total to about 5.5 Billion Euros since 2000. Höchst hosts 90 on-site companies, among them sanofi-aventis, Bayer CropScience, Clariant and Celanese. Researchers, manufacturers, customers and service providers come together at the site and cooperate in terms of raw materials and infrastructure. They also join forces with regard to future-oriented technologies, because the Industrial Park embodies a wealth of research and production know-how. Site operator Infraserv Höchst offers services with regards to secondary processes; for example, they provide the companies with raw materials on-site, do the facility management and run site security. New companies can also rely on their patent lawyers, engineering consultants and other personnel services, which decreases their starting cost.

Hessen has five universities and five Schools of Applied Sciences that cooperate with biotech companies. Hessen is particularly strong in the field of Medical Technology. It comprises a total of 900 medical tech companies, which employ more than 20,000 people. Many of them are located at Höchst Industrial Park. According to Dr. Niemann, “one-third of the German production capacity of biotechnological medicine is centered in Hessen.”

Recently, the importance of “white” (industrial) has increased in the area. The Cluster Initiative Integrated Biotechnology (CIB) in Frankfurt supports networking in this field. The cluster was one of the winners of the “BioIndustry 2021” contest held by the Federal Ministry of Research. The Hessian state government also has set up a state initiative for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence (LOEWE) with the aim of providing long-term support for the research landscape. “This especially includes new ideas in Industrial Biotechnology,” says Niemann. “In Hessen, funds of more than 32 million Euros are made available for Industrial Biotechnology.”

Another promising biotech field is “personalized medicine.” CI3 is a network in Hessen to advance individualized immune intervention. It has been selected as one of Germany’s leading edge clusters in 2012 and has thus been awarded 40 million Euros by the German government. “Research in this field is very promising,” confirms Niemann. “The cluster, that is supported by the states of Hessen, Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wurttemberg and has 120 member-institutions, is on its way to the very top.”

The cluster CI3 works on innovative medicine that is exactly adjusted to the individual patient, who suffers, for example, from tumors or autoimmune diseases. The center of the cluster is based in Mainz. The idea of the cluster is that companies and research facilities will work in partnerships on 78 different projects. The project partners estimate a total volume of approximately 130 million Euros.

“Universities, other research facilities, small and medium-sized companies as well as international players in the field—we have the whole value chain in Hessen,” says Thomas Niemann. Among the project partners are, for example, the technical university Darmstadt, Goethe University Frankfurt, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institution, Georg-Speyer-Haus, Abbott, Biotest, sanofi-aventis and Merck.

Berlin: Biotech Mega-Hub

The Berlin-Brandenburg region concentrates on clinical research. In the capital of Germany, biotechnology is a strong force driving innovation and growth, interfacing with the pharmaceutical, diagnostics and medical technology sectors. Berlin-Brandenburg has a versatile research and clinical landscape. HealthCapital, the cluster management of the region’s healthcare industries, was implemented in 2010. Its goal is to coordinate companies, research and education institutes to foster collaboration and innovation.

Among the focus areas of Berlin-Brandenburg are biomedicine and diagnostics, therapeutics and regenerative medicine and industrial biotechnology. Berlin-Brandenburg is home to more than 200 biotech companies. The sector employs more than 4,000 people. In addition, pharmaceutical and medtech companies in the area have another 10,000 employees each.

Like Munich, Berlin is a top location for start-ups. In 2012, Berlin was ranked the top start-up region in Germany by Foreign Direct Investment magazine. The region offers foreign companies reimbursement grants of up to 50 percent. Berlin is not only home of various start ups, but existing bioscience companies are expanding in the area. In 2012, Takeda made Berlin its distribution headquarters. The Japanese pharmaceutical company is Berlin’s most recent arrival, having relocated its distribution unit from Aachen and Konstanz to Berlin.

Also, sanofi-aventis and B. Braun Melsungen made large investments to expand their existing locations in Berlin. B. Braun Melsungen had their roofing ceremony in January 2013. The 38.2 million Euro expansion project increases the size of the production site by 65 percent. Injectable solutions in plastic containers will be manufactured there. The building will probably be completed by October 2013. Production lines will be installed in 2014. B. Braun Melsungen expects to create 25 new jobs by 2015.

In the past five years, B. Braun Melsungen already had invested 40 Million Euros in Berlin for expansion projects. 670 employees already work for the company in Berlin. In total, the business has three sites in Germany’s capital.

Among other major global corporations that are located in the capital region are Bayer Pharma AG, Berlin-Chemie AG, Pfizer Deutschland and sanofi-aventis. In the past years, sales revenues of more than 5 billion Euros were generated by pharmaceutical products of 24 Berlin-based pharma companies. Together, they employ 10,000 people in the area.

Among a variety of research institutes in Berlin that focus on Life Sciences are four Max Planck institutes, two Fraunhofer institutes, Leibniz institutes and Helmholtz centers, five universities and four universities of the Applied Sciences.

The Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) was founded in November 2012. On this occasion, Professor Walter Rosenthal, chairman of the board and scientific director of the Max Delbück Center for Molecular Medicine Berlin Buch, said: “The founding of the Berlin Institute of Health is a unique opportunity for the German science landscape to restructure the collaboration between a non-university research institution and a university medical center in the field of basic and clinical research.” The BIH will be established in 2015 by the state of Berlin as a public corporation and it will combine the research of the Charité and the MDC, one of 18 research institutions of the Helmholtz Association. The MDC employs more than 1,600 people from 57 countries and works with a budget of more than 70 million Euros per year. The goal is that the cooperative venture with the Charité will harness the strengths and expertise of both partners and significantly advance health research not only in Germany but also on an international level. It will focus on an interdisciplinary approach. For research of the BIH in the coming years, extensive technology platforms are being setup.

“Based on its excellence in interdisciplinary and transnational cooperation, the cluster HealthCapital Berlin- Brandenburg is generating innovations which are to benefit patients as soon as possible,” says director BioTOP Berlin-Brandenburg and cluster manager HealthCapital, Dr. Kai Bindseil. “The application spectrum for biotechnology is constantly increasing. While biotech has concentrated on developing new medicine and diagnostics in recent years, we are now moving on to new markets due to intelligent interconnections with branches like information and communication technology.”

To enforce cooperation at the interface of biotech and IT, Berlin brings together IT and biotech science and industry to develop interdisciplinary projects for innovative IT-supported healthcare. One example is the project “IT-Future of Medicine (ITFoM). The Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics is leading in the project. 60 institutions and companies have joined forces to develop computer models by which personalized “virtual patients” will be derived from the molecular, physiological, anatomic and environmental data of every individual patient. The goal is to develop optimal concepts with minimal side effects.

Public support remains an important factor for financing new products because only few companies have access to venture capital funding. A study by Fleischhauer, Hoyer & Partner has shown that venture capital has increased compared to the crises. With 70 million Euros most of the money was invested in biotech. Investments in medtech were also high with 66 million Euros. The study shows that the Berlin-Brandenburg area ranks third (Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia rank first and second) in regional distribution of all investment. According to the latest BioTOP Report, public funds worth up to 42 million Euros are provided by the federal states for fixed-asset investments and new product developments. The leverage effect generated a further 45 million in private investment. The federal government and the European Union provide additional double-figure million Euro funding.

For start-ups, the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), leading investor in innovative start-ups, has created a new fund worth more than 300 million Euros. Among the investors are Altana, BASF and Robert Bosch.

From Invention To Innovation In Bavaria

“Success through synergies” is the motto of the Bavarian cluster initiatives. To assist entrepreneurs in the starting up and expanding of biotech, Bavaria has set up three agencies under the cluster Biotechnology Bavaria: BioM is responsible for greater Munich, BioMed Würzburg is located in the north of Bavaria and BioPark Regensburg GmbH is responsible for biotech in the core of the state. Bavaria is home to over 320 biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

The cluster in the greater Munich area is home to around 200 companies. 19,000 employees work in the Munich Biotech region. With two universities, two universities of Applied Sciences, the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Neurobiology and Psychiatry and the Helmholtz Research Center for Environmental Health, the region offers an excellent environment for innovation. These institutes include, for example, the Center for Nanosciences, which is one of the world’s leaders in the development and application of nanobiologies. The Life Sciences Campus in Martinsried forms the core of Munich’s Biotech region. The agency “Invest in Bavaria” states: “The campus is home to nearly half of the region’s Biotechs.”

IZB – Biotech Incubator Martinsried Bavaria

The focus of this area is on “red biotechnology,” particularly on diagnostics and therapeutics. The region is dominated by small and medium-sized companies, but eight corporations are listed on the stock exchange, among them MorphoSys.

Freising, located just a few minutes north of Munich, is home of the Weihenstephan campus. It is one of Europe’s major centers of green biotechnologies and has its own incubation center.

In 2012, BioM announced that the Bavarian Ministry of Economics granted four groups of young academics in the field of biosystems research. The subsidies by the state mount up to 1.5 million Euros for each team of young academics. The duration for the grant is five years. This lays the cornerstone for a new research network in the field of molecular biosystems (BioSysNet) that is being established within the framework of a new strategy called “Aufbruch Bayern.” The four young academics that lead the research groups have previously worked in Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and in the U.S. The goal of BioSysNet is to further strengthen Bavaria’s competitive situation in molecular biosystems.

BioSysNet is part of a Bavarian research center for molecular biosystems and thus profits from the subsidies by the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts and is being supported by “Aufbruch Bayern.” The total subsidies amount to 18.1 million Euros.

Bavaria’s north attracts entrepreneurs in the field of biotechnology and medical technology with its Innovation and Start-up Center for Biotechnology and Biomedicine. The Würzburg region is the largest entrepreneurship center in the district of Lower Franconia. The project “Life Sciences in Würzburg” has been established to provide consultancy services and to promote start-ups.

A third hub for biotechnology in Bavaria is in the middle of the state, in Regensburg. Back in 1998 the BioPark Regensburg GmbH was founded. The industrial park was supported by the State of Bavaria and built directly on the university campus at a total cost of 42 million Euros. The park has been expanded in 2001, 2006 and 2011 and now offers 18,000 square meters of laboratory, office and storage space for companies and institutes. Currently, 36 leaseholders and 550 employees have chosen the BioPark. The Regensburg region is home of 47 companies with more than 3,145 employees, 900 of them working in the core area of biotechnology. This makes the Regensburg area the second top biotech region in Bavaria.

The specialties of the university of Applied Sciences in Regensburg are fluorescent bioanalytics, molecular diagnostics, biofunctional surfaces, sensors and applied biomedicine.

In January, BioPark Regensburg GmbH announced that a new center for biomedical engineering will be established in the area. The “Regensburg Center of Biomedical Engineering” (RCBE) will move into interdisciplinary lab facilities in Regensburg’s BioPark. The aim of the new center is to bundle biomedical, medical, IT and engineering competencies and make use of the interfaces.

It comes as no surprise that Regensburg bundles its competencies in interdisciplinary research. For four years the University of Applied Sciences in Regensburg has offered classes in “Medical Information Technology.” Since 2011, “Biomedical Engineering” is a course of studies. Graduates are qualified to work at the interface of medicine and IT, or engineering, respectively. The RCBE will now support and bundle research competencies in these fields. Its focus will be on biomechanics, e-health and equipment technology for medical engineering.

Collectively, companies in Bavaria have performed well in the past years. Employment figures rose slightly by two percent. Bavaria’s 166 small and medium-sized core biotech companies employed a record-setting 4,000-plus  people in the state. Since 2006, employment in these companies has grown by 30 percent. 126 of the 166 small and medium-sized companies are located in the greater Munich area. Core biotech companies account for 10,300 in Bavaria, a plus of 300 employees at Roche, Penzberg, which is remarkable. Adding pharma to this count brings employment in the sector to well over 20,000 people.

There were four newly established companies and among the most recent openings of international subsidiaries are three US-biotech companies and one Japanese pharmaceutical company. LabPMM, San Diego California, opened its German diagnostics Laboratory and Myriad Genetics, Salt Lake City, Utah, set up its central European laboratory in a new building in Martinsried.

Bavaria was countrywide the only state in the past year to attract foreign companies for greenfield development. Bavaria was able to chalk up about 70 million Euros of external biotech funding for Germany in 2011. Numbers for 2012 are not available yet, but it can be estimated that external funding will be higher after a rather meager year. At the same time, revenues of Bavarian biotech companies went up to a new record of more than 510 million Euros.

In 2010, the Munich Biotech Region along with Bavaria’s Medical Valley Nuremberg were winners of the Leading Edge Cluster competition by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Until March 2015, the main research and development strategy for several projects in the Munich area will push personalized medicine. Like the cluster CI3 in Hessen which got the same award only two years later in 2012, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research contributes 40 million Euros for the cluster. The Munich Biotech region received another 60 million Euros by the Bavarian ministry and industry partners.

Next to this, a number of Bavarian biotech companies receive grants by the European Union for their research and development projects. One example is the EUROCALIN Consortium, which includes ten companies, for example Pieris AG in Freising. Over the last 15 years, Roche has invested more than 2 billion Euros for their location in Penzberg to develop and produce therapeutic proteins. In the last two years alone, they invested more than 350 million Euros in new plants for production of therapeutics and diagnostics in Penzberg.

Belgium: Beehive Of Biotech

In Belgium, Flanders has specialized in plant biotechnology, whereas Wallonia has focused on health biotechnologies and medical technologies. Most biotech companies in Belgium are located in the northern part of the country, Flanders. Approximately 17 percent of the companies are in the Capital region, and Wallonia is home to around 34 percent of the companies.

More than 15 percent of the European biopharmaceutical exports come from Belgium. The country is said to be the largest exporter in pharmaceutical goods. A quarter of the world’s vaccines are produced in Belgium. As the world’s second largest vaccine producer, the company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK Biologicals) in Rixensart, southeast of Brussels, contributes to a great deal to this. Approximately 30,000 people work in the biotech sector.

Biotech in the three parts of Belgium is organized in special associations. Flander’s association is called “FlandersBio,” the association in the Capital Region is called “Brussels Life Tech” and Wallonia’s association is “BioWin.” Flanders in the North looks back to a strong tradition of biotechnology that is centered around the university towns of Gent, Mechelen and Leuven. Flanders is home to more than 120 biotech companies, most of which belong to the health and green biotechnologies sectors.

Brussels is home to mostly young biotech companies. Although the region covers not even one percent of the country’s territory, it represents more than 15 percent of the biotech activity in Belgium. Most companies in the capital work in medical biotech.

The same holds true for companies in Wallonia. Since 2005, the regional government of Wallonia supports biotechnologies with the so-called “Marshall Plan.” Setting out from this action plan, the Walloon government has updated and optimized its priorities via a “Marshall Plan 2.Green.” It has been endowed with a budget of 2.75 billion Euros for the period 2009 to 2014. 1.15 billion Euros are alternative funding.

One of the most important regional clusters is the “BioWin” life science network. 27 research and development projects are being funded within the cluster. “BioWin is establishing Wallonia as a world leader in various areas of cutting-edge technology, such as biopharmacy, cell therapy, radiopharmacy, diagnostics, biotechnological products for research and industry, bioinformatics and the processing of complex data,” says Frédérick Druck, communication and international relations director at BioWin.

The cluster has 510 members with 116 businesses and around 80 percent of its members are small and medium-sized companies. 400 research units employ about 11,000 researchers from five academic centers of excellence. With 14,300 employees and a turnover of 4.4 billion Euros, the health sector is key to the economy of Wallonia.

Of the 27 projects that have been funded as a result of the Marshall Plan, five have been completed. Druck says: “In the coming years, we will create 1,200 new jobs.” He adds: “With the help of the cluster we have made a big step in excellence in technologies.” One outcome of this is that 51 patents connected to the projects have been submitted and seven new products have been launched on the market. “We see that five new businesses have been set up,” Druck adds. “Now that there is a network there is a real dynamic.”

Internationalization is key to BioWin in order to strengthen its global competitiveness. Therefore, WAL-Dx/BioWin, the Walloon in vitro diagnostic network and its partner, EuroMediag, the diagnostic cluster of EuroBioMed, the health cluster for the PACA and Languedoc-Roussillon regions (France) joined forces to create EDCA, the European Diagnostic Cluster Alliance. The network already includes nine clusters and represents 400 companies and 40 universities across Europe.

“It was also important for us to create new technological platforms,” Druck says. MaSTherCell, Wallonia’s first technological platform dedicated to the clinical and commercial production of cell therapy products for third parties is a case in point. Realized in 2011, it helped create 20 new jobs. By 2014, 35 jobs will be created and 50 new jobs are predicted by 2017.

“In Wallonia, the universities in Brussels, Charleroi and Liège are hotspots for research,” says Druck. In total, 14 universities and several other research facilities add to Belgium’s great research experience. Flanders and Wallonia have five universities each and four schools are located in the Brussels area. On a regular basis, Belgium’s universities rank among the top 25, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Leuven University, for example, has specialized on medicine, cell biology and gene therapy. Gent University, by contrast, focuses on biomedicine and plant genetics. Hasselt University is known for its expertise in autoimmune diseases.

The financial situation for biotech companies in Belgium is favorable. “For the last eight months we note that very small companies have found 60 million Euros private capital at venture capital funds,” says Frédérick Druck. The website reports that Belgium is Europe’s leader with regard to venture capital.

One recent investment was made by the biopharmaceutical company Union Chimique Belge (UCB). The company inaugurated a new biotechnology pilot facility at the Braine-l’Alleud site of UCB in September 2012. The site operates a research and production facility employing 1,500 people. The biopharmaceutical facility was constructed with an investment of 65 million Euros. Approximately 100 new jobs will be created. With the opening of the pilot biotech center, UCB is gearing up to reinforce its biotech activity through industry and academia collaboration. It is among the first plants in Belgium to produce cell-culture-based therapeutic proteins. The plant is a milestone in the development of new biological medicines and molecular development.

Luxembourg: Europe’s Solid Rock

“[Luxembourg has] a solid foundation to generate future economic diversification and growth,” says Dr. Thomas Dentzer, Head of Life Sciences Sector Development and Luxembourg BioHealth cluster manager. As the competitiveness of a country is more and more dependent on effective innovation networks involving private and public sectors, Luxembourg has implemented various initiatives in order to strengthen the research and development and innovation potential of companies and to reinforce links with public research organizations and academia.

Luxembourg’s House of BioHealth

“The Luxembourg Cluster Initiative, launched by the Luxembourg government, actively encourages networking between the private and the public sectors,” explains Dentzer. Healthcare and biotechnology are among the key technologies that have been identified as being important for the future sustainable development of the Luxembourg economy. Luxembourg’s research and development and innovation policy brings together biotech with other networks, such as eco-innovation-technologies or IT.

The Luxembourg BioHealth Cluster brings together public and private stakeholders whose activities are related to health science and technologies in Luxembourg. “It aims to foster partnerships and collaborations that favor innovative projects, thereby reinforcing and capitalizing on the national strategy developed to achieve scientific excellence in molecular medicine,” says Dentzer.

Luxembourg is strong in biomedical research. “The trends in Luxembourg, also due to the focus on personalized medicine, are going in the direction of computational biology and bioinformatics, using the latest IT-solutions to investigate complex processes,” adds Dentzer. The medical field is taking advantage of Luxembourg’s IT infrastructure and its expertise in data security.

Among the most important research facilities in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg are the Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg (IBBL), the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) and, most recently, the House of Biohealth, a new life science incubator.

The mission of IBBL is to work with the people of Luxembourg to provide high quality specimens and data, catalyze partnerships and support research. To accomplish its aims IBBL will, for example, support the four priority research programs in the personalized medicine initiative (cancer, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and normal population cohort). The LCSB, by contrast, is accelerating biomedical research by closing the link between systems biology and medical research. Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease, metabolomics and disease network analysis are in the focus of LCSB’s research.

Luxembourg’s most recent research facility is the House of Biohealth. The construction of the new life sciences incubator was officially launched in  November 2012 by the Secretary of Economy and Foreign Trade, Etienne Schneider. It aims to facilitate the transformation of research results into marketable products and services, and it is expected to receive its first tenants in the beginning of 2014. It will be built in the vicinity of the future city of sciences in Esch-Belval. Dentzer says: “This unique facility will offer office space as well as laboratories providing the necessary infrastructure for the creation and development of start-ups as well as already established companies in the fields of biotech, cleantech and ICT.” Within 10,000 square meters of laboratory space, the building is expected to host 500 to 700 researchers.

The building is a joint project of the Luxembourg Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade, the ZARE Park for economic activities in Esch-sur-Alzette and private investors.

The Luxembourg government has developed financial aids for companies involved in research and development. The Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade, for example, targets small enterprises or small private research organizations established in Luxembourg which were created less than six years before the aid is granted and which either will, in the foreseeable future, develop new products, processes or services, which involve a significant risk of technical or industrial failure or which have used at least 15 percent of their operating expenses for research and development over the least one of the three years preceding the granting of the aid, or over the current year. All of the enterprise’s expenses are eligible. This aid can only be awarded once and it cannot exceed one million Euros. Financial aids for new innovative businesses are, for example start-up loans or equipment loans offered by the Société Nationale de Crédit et d’Investissement. To support intellectual property rights, Luxembourg offers an 80 percent tax exemption to income from patents, trademarks, design, models and software copyrights or domain names. Capital gains generated on intellectual property will be exempt up to 80 percent. Plus, in 2009, net wealth tax was abolished on qualifying intellectual property.

Biotech company WaferGen Biosystems, Inc. set up its European headquarters in Luxembourg in 2010. The Luxembourg government provided the company with significant support towards increasing its research and development activities and raising its profile in Europe. WaferGen is working in partnership with the Integrated Biobank of Luxembourg and maintains offices in the business incubator Luxembourg Technoport. WaferGen is an emerging leader in the development, manufacture, and sale of state-of-the-art systems for genome analysis for the life science and pharmaceutical industries.

Another company that installed its European Headquarter in Luxembourg is Neo Medical Systems. The company collaborates with Luxinnovation and the BioHealth cluster. Founder Francois Scalais submitted a business plan to the 1,2,3,GO programme, which selected the company as a laureate in the 2012 round. With a prototype of a system that provides 3D laparoscopic images in operating rooms, Neo Medical Systems is currently preparing to participate in the Seed4Start initiative to bring in additional financing. Scalais explains: “Luxembourg is great for us.”

 Austria: Connecting East And West

The total revenue in biotech in Austria accounts for approximately 3 billion Euros. The vast majority is generated by only 36 large companies like Boehringer Ingelheim, Sandoz or Sanochemia that have 5,800 employees. In 2010, the research strength of these companies was as high as 107 percent. Innovation hubs are in Tirol, Upper Austria and Styria. The most important innovation hub for biotech, however, is Austria’s capital region, Vienna. Every second biotech company in Austria is based in Vienna.

The cluster LISAvienna connects more than 400 companies, 99 of which are core biotech companies, and 22 research facilities. 9,000 life scientists work in Vienna.

Austria is known for its research funding. In 2011, Austria raised the research rate/premium from eight to 10 percent for expenses in research and development. Companies that invest in innovation get the premium in cash.

“Two national funding agencies, AWS and FFG, fund pre-seed formations of companies with 200,000 Euros”, says Susanne Locker. She is a project manager in the LISAvienna cluster management. “AWS and FFG fund young high-tech-start-ups with one million Euro seed-financing.” The research funding company FFG supports innovative projects financially.

One central funding initiative is the Competence Center for Excellent Technologies (COMET). It aims to strengthen cooperation between industry and academia. During its run duration from 2006 to 2019, 1.5 billion Euros will be invested in industry-oriented research; a great part of this will go to life sciences.

One of Austria’s focus areas is cancer research. The competence center Oncotyrol in Innsbruck has a research volume of 37.5 million Euros until 2015. In 2012, the EU-project OPTATO was started to develop new strategies against an incurable bone marrow tumor. It has a research volume of four million Euros.

Also, the institute of molecular pathology (IMP) that is based at the Campus Vienna Biocenter, enjoys an excellent reputation. More than 200 researchers from all over the world work here. Boehringer Ingelheim invests more than 160 million Euros per year for cancer research in Vienna.

Among the most important research facilities next to IMP and Oncotyrol are the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), the Austrian Center for Industrial Biotechnology (acib) and the Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering (RCPE) in Graz.

The RCPE was founded in 2008 in the context of the funding program COMET. RCPE’s CEO Johannes Khinast says: “With our special research focus, corporations like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, sanofi-aventis, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Abbott or Merck like to partner with us. We work together with 10 renowned research facilities. There are only two comparable non-university research institutes in the world.”

In 2012, pharma-giant Baxter announced it will build a 30 million Euros production facility in Vienna. The company is planning to launch the operating site at the end of 2014. In 2011, Baxter invested approximately 47 million Euros in production sites in Austria. In 2012, the pharmaceutical corporation invested 100 million Euros. In total, the company employs 4,100 people in Austria. Baxter employs 900 people in Vienna and Orth in the field of research and development. Three out of four scientists who work for Baxter around the globe are thus based in Austria. The country is Baxter’s largest site in the world.

In 2012, Austria’s investment agency ABA was able to attract 201 foreign companies across all sectors to start their business or relocate to Austria. They invested 282.4 million Euros. 2,385 new jobs were created, which is an increase of 31 percent, compared to 2011.

One of 11 life science companies that invested in Austria in 2012 is biolitec AG. The German company develops medical laser systems and fiber optics. Biolitec CEO Dr. Wolfgang Neuberger says: “The infrastructure, funding options and flexible group taxation were crucial for our decision to relocate our headquarters to Vienna.”

Texas Biotech Out Of The Labs, Into The Market

In the U.S., the race is on to move promising biotech initiatives out of labs and into commercial production.

In the Lone Star State, a University of Texas spinoff company has pulled in $2 million to test a new technique for culturing non-embryonic stem cells. According to a regulatory filing, StemBioSys raised at least $2 million of a $3.5 million equity offering. CEO Dr. Steven Davis told the San Antonio Business Journal late last year (when the company began raising the round) that it would fund research projects to validate the quality of the stem cells generated by the company’s technology.

StemBioSys is developing XC-marrow ECM, a propriety three-dimensional culture for growing mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow, adipose tissue and umbilical cord blood. These immature cells have multiple potential uses in research and therapeutics because they can self-renew and mature into a variety of cell types. Stem cell therapies are being studied as a repair mechanism for tissues all over the body, from the heart to the brain to the knees.

The company says its three-dimensional extracellular matrix can grow cells quicker than conventional media while retaining stem cell properties and may help overcome key obstacles in creating stem cell therapies. The technology was developed by Dr. Xiao-Dong Chen, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the company’s chief scientific officer, and licensed from UT.

Although it’s only available for research purposes now, this kind of technology could have therapeutic applications down the line. “If this research transfers successfully to clinical application in humans, we could establish personal stem cell banks,” Chen said. “We would collect a small number of older stem cells from patients, put those into our young microenvironment to rescue them–increasing their number and quality–then deliver them back into the patient.”

The company has struck a deal with GenCure, an affiliate of the nonprofit South Texas Blood & Tissue Center, to receive mononuclear cells from clinical grade umbilical-cord blood that it uses for R&D purposes. It was founded in 2010 in San Antonio, Texas and has received previous funding from the Texas Technology Development Center’s McDermott Pre-Seed Fund.

Currently, there are more than 160 Austin-area companies with over 8,200 employees operating in the areas of Biotech, Diagnostics, Medical Device, CRO/IRB, Pharma, Biosecurity and Agribio, among others. Texas is one of the leading biotech states in the country, with 3,400 companies and an estimated economic impact of $75 billion.

As relatively young industries in Austin, life science and biotechnology companies enjoy unique successes, with strong growth projected in the areas of biologics/biotech and medical device/diagnostics. Here’s a breakdown of the leading sectors:

• Medical device/diagnostics (40 percent)
• Biologics/biotech (20 percent)
• Contract Research Organizations (20 percent)
• Pharmaceuticals (10 percent)
• Other (11 percent)

Molecular Biotech Center Opens In Salt Lake City

The University of Utah has developed a well-deserved reputation for its research and business innovation, a reputation now enhanced by a new high-tech facility that could promises a financial return as well.

Leaders from the Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative in 2012 dedicated the James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building—a $130-million, 208,000-square-foot research facility where scientists, physicians and engineers will collaborate to create new advances in the biotech field.

“The technology that is developed here is going to be a multidisciplinary …cross-pollination of ideas,” said Dinesh Patel, chairman of the USTAR Governing Authority, as reported by KSL.com. Located midway between the engineering and medical areas of campus, the new research building will facilitate increased interaction among faculty and student researchers,

Up to three additional buildings are planned to expand the university’s biotech center.

Financial support for the facility came from $100 million in state bonding and the balance from private donations, including $15 million from the Sorenson Legacy Foundation and $1.25 million from Micron Technology. Construction of the project began in April 2009 and was completed in December 2011. Tenants started moving in last month.

According to the KSL.com report, researchers at the new facility will have the ability to perform “dry” nano (fabrication) for silicon chips, etc., as well as “wet” nano—for use in biomedical devices. The facility also boasts precision equipment, including a $3 million confocal microscope for florescent imaging of cellular processes. Nanofabrication is the design and manufacture of devices with dimensions measured in nanometers. One nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter—less than the diameter of a human hair. The process is of interest to computer engineers because it could open the door to super-high-density microprocessors and memory chips that could one day store a data bit in a single atom.

Since its inception in 2007, USTAR has helped produce more than 300 invention disclosures and patent filings, along with 44 start-up companies or industry partnerships, according to a program statement.

USTAR collaborates with the University of Utah and Utah State University to create world-class research teams in strategic innovation development areas. Highly regarded faculty members, supported by teams of top researchers, lead the teams.

The infrastructure and multidisciplinary nature of the new Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building and at the related facility at Utah State University will likely help draw bigger research grants to Utah.

“To successfully win big federal and industry grants takes more complex, collaborative teams of researchers,” Patel told KSL.com. “The physical and intellectual infrastructure this building represents has already helped the U. of U. win a $20 million advanced materials grant.”

The new facility houses the Brain Institute, Nano Institute of Utah and Department of Bioengineering, according to USTAR spokesman Michael O’Malley.

Thus far, the USTAR program has recruited 32 principle researchers to Utah from such prestigious institutions as Harvard, MIT and UCLA. As of Dec. 2011, the researchers have generated nearly $80 million in grants since 2007, with more than $81 million in research proposals pending.

NBAF Bio-Defense Lab Moves Forward In Manhattan, KS

In Kansas, state leaders are celebrating recent progress in the region’s largest biotech project: the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), in Manhattan, KS.

The federal Department of Homeland Security signed a formal land transfer agreement with the state to move ahead with NBAF.

“While there is much more work to be done, signing of the land transfer agreement is a good step forward in securing the future health, wealth and security of our nation,” Gov. Sam Brownback said in a news release. “It demonstrates DHS’ continued commitment to completing the NBAF in Manhattan. Kansas stands ready to partner with DHS to move this important national security priority forward.”

Rendering of the National Bio- and Agro- Defense Facility in Kansas

DHS will acquire about 46 acres of land near the north end of Kansas State University for the lab. The transfer clears the way for construction to begin, and a groundbreaking later this year.

NBAF scientists will research animal and human diseases and develop cures and vaccines to counter them. According to the news release, DHS already has invested more than $125 million in the lab, which is expected to cost $650 million. The state has committed $105 million dollars of matching funds for the facility and $35 million dollars of research funding. The project is expected to have a $3.5 billion economic boon to the state in its first 20 years, including 757 construction jobs and 326 permanent positions.

NBAF researchers would study animal-related diseases—including foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever, African swine fever, Nipah virus, Japanese Encephalitis, Rift Valley fever and contagious bovine pleuropneuomonia—and develop vaccines and treatments. The facility would be run jointly by Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“This was the next step we have all been waiting for and moves us further down the construction timeline,” said U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts. “We will continue to monitor each step in the process to ensure NBAF remains a top national security priority.”

VC Funds Flowing Into Florida Bio Initiatives

The bioscience industry in Florida is on the rise in terms of new companies and venture capital flowing into businesses, according to BioFlorida, an industry trade organization.

Venture funding for the industry in 2012, for example, rose 19 percent over 2011, to $103.5 million, according to a BioFlorida release. That was the best year for venture capital in the industry since 2007. Plus, the amount of deals rose from 15 in 2011 to 19 in 2012.

The amount of biotech start-up companies in the sector is growing, too. BioFlorida reports that tally is up 13.5 percent since the first quarter of 2012.

The statewide data comes from a University of Florida Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator report. “The new data is evidence of a strong, innovative and sustainable bioscience business climate here in Florida,” says David Day, assistant vice president of the University of Florida Office of Technology Licensing and the Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator.

“Not only is Florida experiencing growth in the number of biotechnology businesses, we are also seeing a continued increase in venture capital investments—demonstration of investor confidence in our biotechnology start-ups and breakthrough research,” Day added.

Naples-based biotechnology firm Kirax is planning a new high-rise headquarters. “My goal is to continue to expand Kirax in Naples,” said Edmundo Muniz, president and CEO of Kirax, which develops pharmaceuticals, in an interview with the Naples Daily News. “You will see a big tall building in Naples with the word ‘Kirax’ across the top.”

Southwest Florida is playing catch-up with other regions of the state in developing a biotech cluster. Of the 219 biotechnology companies based in Florida, seven of them are located in Southwest Florida, according to Florida BioDatabase. That puts the region sixth out of the state’s eight regions in terms of numbers of biotech companies, tied with Northeast Florida and behind the Panhandle and Central Florida, according to the database.

Florida experienced a biotech boom from 2006 through 2011, with the number of companies growing by 42 percent compared to just 5 percent nationwide, the university’s Florida BioPulse report shows. More than 10 percent of the nation’s biotech companies call Florida home.

The report gives much of the credit to then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who pushed a controversial $310 million incentive package through the state Legislature to lure the Scripps Research Institute to Palm Beach County, which threw in another $187 million for the first phase of construction.

The institute specializes in biomedical research. It opened in 2009. Scripps “opened up the dam” for biotech in Florida, said Patti Breedlove, associate director of UF’s Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator.

“That was a pivotal moment,” she said. “People stopped laughing about the possibilities of biotech in Florida.”

Getting Southwest Florida a larger share of the biotechnology pie isn’t “on our radar now,” said Michael Wynn, co-chairman of The Partnership for Collier’s Future Economy, an arm of the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce.

He said he sees a “huge potential” for attracting biotechnology firms when the county is ready to redirect its focus there, citing the region’s quality of life and the plethora of CEOs that live here and whose connections with the biotech world could be tapped.

In Estero, Florida Gulf Coast University’s fledgling biotechnology program has graduated 40 students, and is setting its sights on creating a master’s and doctorate degree program, said Takashi Ueda, an associate professor of biology and the biotechnology program leader. A 241-acre research park, dubbed Innovation Hub, is planned to break ground at FGCU in early 2013 with a focus on renewable energy sources, including biotech.

Roche Breaks Ground On Indy Learning Center

Late last year, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard joined Roche Diagnostics President and CEO Jack Phillips as well as other Roche executives and community leaders to break ground on the company’s new Learning and Development Center. The center is the first element of a $300 million site transformation investment that was announced in June 2012. The city of Indianapolis and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered Roche tax abatements, tax credits and training grants.

“Roche has been an important part of our life sciences heritage for nearly 50 years now, and this expansion signals an important commitment to the region,” said Ballard.

“Central Indiana has been our home since 1964 and we are here to stay,” said Jack Phillips, president and CEO of Roche Diagnostics, adding that the company’s history and growth in the region is due in part to the community’s outstanding workforce and partnerships with the state and city that have enhanced job creation.

The capital investments at Roche’s North American headquarters on the northeast side of Indianapolis will support the company’s growing diagnostics and diabetes care businesses.  The new Learning and Development Center will host the training of more than 1,500 customers from across the nation each year.

“As a key piece of our North American Headquarters, the new Learning and Development Center will serve as a hub and gateway for worldwide operations,” said Phillips. “We felt that it was important for the building to reflect our global influence, right here in Indianapolis.”

Mississippi Medical Center Unveils New Research Hub

Construction of a new research building, which will include space for start-up biotechnology companies, is commencing this year at University of Mississippi Medical Center in Fondren. UMC leaders plan to spend $35 million initially on the eight-story shell of the Cancer and Biomedical Science Research Center and plan to finish the ground, first and second-floor interiors of the 220,000 square-foot building. That work should take about 18 months. Contractors would complete additional floors as funds become available. “We have very limited amounts of research space right now,” said Dr. John Hall, UMMC associate vice chancellor for research. “This building will help us recruit scientists, expand our research centers and institutes, and develop the Biotechnology Research Park at UMMC.”

Biotech company incubator space will occupy about 25,000 square feet on one floor. That will mark the first phase of a long-term plan to construct the Mississippi Biotechnology Research Park. The building also will house laboratory animal facilities and UMMC Cancer Institute labs. Hall said administrators will survey space needs of departments and research centers. UMMC leaders put plans on hold last year for a Mississippi Biotechnology Research Park project at the old farmers market when Congress swore off federally targeted funds, known as earmarks. The project already had received nearly $20 million in federal earmarks, and UMMC had taken ownership of the farmer’s market property, located at West Street and Woodrow Wilson Avenue. With little likelihood of further federal support, administrators opted to include biotech incubator space in the Cancer and Biomedical Science Research Center, which allowed use of the $20 million for the on-campus building.

Frederick County, MD: U.S. Biotech Research Hub

Frederick County, Maryland, is the prime location for bioscience companies to establish and continue their dynamic success in a global marketplace. Already home to more than 70 cutting edge bioscience companies, Frederick County has the second largest cluster of bioscience companies in Maryland.

In fact, Maryland is home to the highest concentration of federal biotech research facilities, anchored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Taken together, Maryland’s bioscience research complex is conservatively estimated to represent nearly $8 billion in research and development expenditures annually, third in total size only to California and New Jersey. The state also has a leadership position in academic R&D per capita, led by Johns Hopkins University, the top recipient of NIH funding in the U.S.

MedImmune is completing work on its $600-million Frederick Manufacturing Center, which will employ 250; when it ramps up to full production the center is expected to be the largest bulk biotech manufacturing facility in the United States.

Frederick County’s burgeoning biotech cluster continues to expand exponentially. A good example is MedImmune, now part of AstraZeneca, which recently completed its $250-million, 337,000- square-foot Frederick Manufacturing Center, creating 200 new jobs and bringing total employment to 450. The Frederick facility will be one of the biggest bulk biotech manufacturing facilities in the country. The workforce at the $600-million facility is expected to double when the plant ramps up to full production. MedImmune also has expanded its headquarters complex in Gaithersburg, investing $200 million and increasing the lab staff to 600.

Qiagen, a Netherlands-based supplier of sample and assay technologies in the life sciences sector, expanded its North American headquarters and manufacturing center in Germantown. The $2-million, four-phase expansion is adding about 90 new jobs. Qiagen employs more than 3,500 globally, including nearly 700 across its three locations in Maryland at Germantown, Gaithersburg and Frederick.

Lonza Bioscience invested $26 million in an expansion of its cell production and office space in Walkersville, adding 80 employees bringing total employment to 480. Additionally, Life Technologies undertook a $5 million expansion of their life sciences manufacturing distribution center.

Many new and expanding bioscience companies choose Frederick County as their preferred business location for the following reasons:

• Business Friendly Environment
• No business personal property tax
• Competitive tax structure
• Fast Track permitting assistance
• Start-up companies benefit from a high-tech incubator at Frederick Innovative Technology Center

Recent bioscience expansions also include the Fort Detrick National Interagency Biodefense Campus; new laboratories and office for Interagency Biodefense R&D and new facilities at the SAIC-Frederick, Inc./National Cancer Institute.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is seeking to spur biotech development with his $100-million InvestMaryland program, which would provide tax credits to insurance companies so they could invest in technology companies, including biotech research facilities. The state also is well under way with its Bio 2020 plan to invest at least $1.3 billion in biotech across the decade. The 15-year-old Maryland Venture Fund, which makes direct investments in technology and life sciences early-stage companies, has invested $25 million and returned more than double that investment.

Under the Bio 2020 plan, the Maryland Biotechnology Center was established within the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development to coordinate a host of state, university and private sector initiatives to support biotechnology innovation and entrepreneurship in Maryland. The Center works closely with university technology transfer offices and commercialization programs such as the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) and the University of Maryland’s Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program to foster and fund collaborative initiatives between bioscience enterprises, universities, and federal labs. In certain qualifying cases, the Center can supplement funding of industry-university and industry-federal labs research partnerships.

The Center has created a BioEntreprenuer Resources Program which assists entrepreneurs in leveraging available public and private capital. The Center also works closely with the University of Maryland School of Law’s Intellectual Property Legal Resource Center (MIPLRC). The MIPLRC provides free legal services on the subjects of business and intellectual property to start-up bioscience enterprises.

Higher-Ed Partnering For Progress In Minnesota

A biotechnology partnership has been initiated between Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) and the University of Minnesota. In addition to the transferability of the Biotechnology program in its entirety, the partnership ensures graduates of MCTC’s Biotechnology program with grade point averages of 3.5 or higher will be enrolled at the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota, one of the University’s most prestigious schools.

“Minnesota has earned its place in the medical device industry by nurturing scientists,” said LifeScience Alley President and CEO Dale Wahlstrom. “This partnership moves students between two strong academic programs to graduate studies or careers in Minnesota’s famed bioscience sector.”

The first cohort within the new biotechnology partnership includes seven MCTC students. MCTC’s Biotechnology faculty leader Rekha Ganaganur noted all seven of the students have undergraduate research or internship experiences and some have obtained jobs in the bioscience industry. She applauded the vision of Robert Elde, the dean of the University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences. “Dean Elde knows Minnesotans want colleges to collaborate to enhance the biotechnology workforce of the future.” Ganaganur is grateful for the LifeScience Alley membership for serving on the MCTC advisory group which made the partnership possible.

Elde and Ganaganur pledged their programs to support students who start their academic careers at community colleges. MCTC program participants can consider themselves University students as they grow their academic careers. “The partnership is a positive example of a collaborative effort that will help ensure a pathway for students to the top scientific careers in our state,” said MCTC President Phil Davis. “I am extremely impressed with the caliber of students enrolled in our programs, and MCTC welcomes this as a way to encourage academic success.”

New Jersey New Incentives For On-The-Job Training

NJ Gov. Chris Christie Administration recently announced that financial hiring incentives are now available to employers through the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development (LWD) if they hire and train former pharmaceutical industry employees. Employers willing to hire displaced pharmaceutical workers may reduce the cost to train new employees under this new on-the-job training program, which will reimburse each employer up to 50 to 90 percent of a new hire’s salary for up to six months and a maximum of $14,000.

“As a former business owner, I fully understand the expense associated with training new employees.  This is an opportunity for employers to bring on new staff and offset their training costs. This program benefits employers and employees and will help stimulate job growth here in New Jersey,” said Dept. of LWD Commissioner Harold J. Wirths.

New Jersey employers from all industries are eligible to participate in this program, which is commonly known as an On-the-Job-Training program, as long as the prospective new hires are among the former pharmaceutical industry workers covered under a National Emergency Grant first issued to the LWD by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2010.

The program is managed in collaboration with the state’s Life Sciences Talent Network at BioNJ. It is designed to help workers who were displaced from the pharmaceutical industry due to the economic downturn by providing job training and assistance in finding new employment. New Jersey applied for the grant to keep the state’s pharmaceutical talent in the state and maintain New Jersey’s economic competitiveness. The workers covered under the grant include those who were displaced from approved locations of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Hoffman-La Roche, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., and Pfizer companies.

Under the new On-the-Job Training component, employers will not incur any fees and LWD or the Life Sciences Talent Network staff will pre-screen applicants for eligibility or will assist in qualifying candidates prior to the actual hire. New Jersey also is paving the way for increased cooperation between the state’s bio-pharma industry and academia.

Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno recently announced the formation of a new Council on Innovation to advise the NJ Partnership for Action on how industry and academia can better work together to improve New Jersey’s economy and attract more federal funding. Creation of the Council is among 15 recommendations in a report released by New Jersey Policy Research Organization (NJPRO) and Innovation NJ. In addition, Lt. Governor Guadagno announced Secretary of Higher Education Rochelle Hendricks as the newest member of the NJ Partnership for Action. The report recommends policy changes that would create an “innovation ecosystem,” making it easier for industry and academia to collaborate on new ideas and inventions.

Other recommendations include cutting red tape by creating standard agreements governing intellectual property rights and collaboration between entities. Identifying areas of expertise within New Jersey’s colleges and universities that can form the basis for Centers of Excellence. Designation of a single center of excellence for a topic would provide guidance to interested parties searching for a research partner; having a chief administrator at each college and university who will serve as a one-stop shop coordinator for businesses to connect with university information and resources.

Secretary Hendricks emphasized the importance of aligning businesses and academic institutions to grow New Jersey’s economy, attract more federal funds and bring innovative products and ideas to market.

“We need to be efficient and effective to win the competition to market commercial ideas and products,” she said. “Many of our academic institutions are already doing ground-breaking research. With improved collaboration among state agencies, colleges and businesses, that research can be directly connected with the economy, helping our institutions continue to compete on a national and global scale.”

Kentucky Spreads Seed Capital To Bio Start-Ups

Kentucky is offering a host of programs geared to jumpstart biotech start-ups. Commonwealth Seed Capital, LLC (CSC) is an independent fund that makes debt or equity investments in early-stage Kentucky business entities to facilitate the commercialization of innovative ideas and technologies. Investments are typically made in these specified innovation areas: health and human development; information technology and communications; bioscience; environmental and energy technologies; and materials science and advanced manufacturing.  CSC invests in companies that have a significant Kentucky presence, the prospect for substantial growth and the potential to generate an appropriate rate of return.

The Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development also offers a matching funds program to facilitate biotech start-ups. The Cabinet will match, on a competitive basis, Phase 1 and Phase 2 federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards received by Kentucky high-tech small businesses and those willing to become Kentucky-based businesses.

This includes matching Phase 1 federal awards up to $150,000 to support the exploration of the technical merit or feasibility of an idea or technology. The program also provides up to $500,000 of federal Phase 2 awards, which support full-scale research and development.

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The Lexus ES 350 (Photo: Toyota)

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has announced Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) will be the first-ever U.S. production site for the Lexus ES 350 model, the top-selling Lexus sedan in the world. Gov. Beshear made the historic announcement in Georgetown, KY along with local leaders and Toyota officials in both Georgetown and via satellite from New York.

TMMK will produce about 50,000 Lexus vehicles a year starting in 2015. The expansion for Lexus entails a $360 million investment and will create 750 new jobs in the Commonwealth. Toyota will invest an additional $171.2 million in other plant refurbishments. The investment is the second-largest ever made by Toyota in its Georgetown plant, and the largest since the $800 million addition of Plant 2 in 1991, more than 20 years ago.

“Since its arrival here in 1986, the impact Toyota has had on Kentucky has been immeasurable, and the addition of Lexus production only adds to that enduring legacy,” said Gov. Beshear. “The numbers that jump out right away include the 750 jobs and the more than $530 million investment, but the establishment of production for the Lexus ES 350 will also afford Kentucky a tremendous opportunity to expand and strengthen its vast supplier base, creating even more growth potential in the future. Kentucky is proud of the confidence Toyota continues to demonstrate in our vibrant and skilled workforce as they prepare to make a vehicle model that, like them, has earned a reputation for high quality.”

Gov. Beshear’s administration developed key legislation that allowed Toyota to evaluate the benefit of moving Lexus ES production to the Commonwealth.

The Kentucky Jobs Retention Act (KJRA) is an incentive program designed to spur job creation and significant investments in Kentucky’s automotive and parts manufacturing facilities. The program originally was designed to encourage the recent investment and job growth by Ford in Louisville, but Gov. Beshear recognized its potential for other auto makers and large parts manufacturing facilities. He signed House Bill 400 (HB 400), sponsored by Rep. Larry Clark, of Louisville, and passed in the 2012 special legislative session, which expanded the KJRA to make it accessible to companies like Toyota.

Recognizing the enormous prospect of such an investment, Gov. Beshear then met with top Toyota officials during an economic development visit to Japan in November, when he discussed expansion plans for Toyota in Kentucky, including a possible addition of Lexus production.

“I’m proud of our economic development team’s constant efforts to keep Kentucky competitive,” said Gov. Beshear. “Expanding a key incentive program – one that had demonstrated success in our state already – helped us to land an enormous investment from Toyota, which will in turn create even more investment through suppliers and other support businesses. This means more dependable, good-paying jobs for our families.”

To secure Toyota’s investment and job growth in Georgetown, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority preliminarily approved the company for tax incentives up to $146.5 million through the Kentucky Jobs Retention Act.

The location of TMMK in Georgetown has helped drive Kentucky’s automotive industry into the thriving force it is today. Kentucky is currently home to approximately 450 automotive-related industries that employ nearly 80,000 people. Additionally, the ties between Kentucky and the Japanese business community continue to flourish, with Kentucky today boasting more than 150 Japanese-owned manufacturing, service and technology facilities that collectively employ 37,000 people.

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“We’re excited to expand our commitment to the state of Kentucky,” said Kenneth Tuchman, chairman and chief executive officer of TeleTech. “The talented labor force in the state will help us deliver exceptional support to our Fortune 1000 clients and their customers.”

The company will offer a range of positions in Paducah, including trainers, human capital managers, talent acquisition specialists, facilities managers, senior desktop support technicians, team leads, business analysts, service delivery managers and customer service representatives.

“I am so pleased to welcome TeleTech to Paducah and look forward to a long and productive relationship,” said Sen. Bob Leeper, of Paducah. “They know that Kentucky is a good place to do business.”

“This is great news and could not come at a better time for our local economy,” said Rep. Gerald Watkins, of Paducah. “I’m especially pleased that TeleTech is helping both our downtown and our commerce park. I want to thank the company’s leaders for taking such a major step, and I appreciate the hard work our local and state officials have done to help make this possible.”

“Cities across the country are putting forth their best efforts to retain and attract companies. In this competitive climate, I am proud that TeleTech has chosen to bring 450 jobs to Paducah,” said Paducah Mayor Gayle Kaler. “I feel that TeleTech will be pleased with the workforce, the quality of life, and the sense of community that Paducah and McCracken County offer. I also applaud the collaboration between McCracken County, Paducah Economic Development and the city of Paducah in bringing this project to fruition. Job creation is a top priority.”

“We are honored that TeleTech has decided to open two facilities here in McCracken County,” said McCracken County Judge-Executive Van Newberry. “The creation of 450 jobs for our area is most welcome!”

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Hayashi Telempu manufactures these automotive parts.

Gov. Steve Beshear has announced Hayashi Telempu North America Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan-based Hayashi Telempu Corporation, plans to establish manufacturing operations in Frankfort, KY. The project will create 103 jobs and represents an investment of more than $10.7 million in the Commonwealth.

Hayashi Telempu manufactures automotive interior parts and will occupy a 60,000-square-foot facility. Established in 1947 in Japan, the company has grown to include more than 3,000 employees in offices and plants all over the world, including a location in Lexington, KY.

“We are excited about opening our newest North American facility in the Frankfort location,” said Norio Takami, president and CEO of Hayashi Telempu North America Corp. “This new location will enable us to improve our ability to serve our customers more effectively, as we produce our new lightweight products with state-of-the-art equipment and leading edge technology there. Operations will start in September 2014.”

To encourage the investment and job creation in Frankfort, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority preliminarily approved the company for tax incentives up to $1.3 million through the Kentucky Business Investment program. The performance-based incentive allows a company to keep a portion of its investment over the term of the agreement through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments by meeting job and investment targets.

Kentucky is home to nearly 450 motor vehicle-related facilities, employing nearly 80,000 people. The automotive industry led a record-setting year of exports in Kentucky for 2012, with $4.4 billion in export sales for motor vehicles and parts produced in the Commonwealth.

Kentucky’s foreign direct investment also continues to grow, with approximately 420 internationally based companies from 30 nations, employing more than 80,000 people in the Commonwealth. Japanese-owned companies operate more than 150 facilities in Kentucky and provide more than 37,000 full-time jobs.

“This is great news and further illustrates just how much potential Kentucky has when it comes to growth from foreign investment,” said Rep. Carl Rollins, of Midway. “I want to thank the company for choosing to locate here, and I appreciate the work Gov. Beshear, the Cabinet for Economic Development, and our local officials have done to make our community such an attractive place for jobs like this. This also speaks highly of our workforce, which is truly second-to-none.”

“As Franklin County judge-executive, I extend a warm welcome to Hayashi Telempu North American Corporation on behalf of our county and the region, and thank Gov. Beshear for his efforts, which have helped make your presence here a reality,” said Franklin County Judge-Executive Ted Collins. “We believe you will find Franklin County a partner who shares your vision of future success in this venture, is supportive of local business, and one that will help to provide the most effective resources for you to thrive in our community. People are a company’s greatest asset, and we know you will find the people of this area, who will fill the 103 jobs you propose to create here, a great resource. Franklin County thanks you for making this the choice for your new site, and we wish you and your business much success.”

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Gov. Steve Beshear joined Newly Weds Foods executives, Northern Kentucky Tri-County Economic Development Corporation and local officials to announce that the company will launch a regional food production facility in northern Kentucky with plans to create 115 jobs and a $57 million investment in Boone County and the Commonwealth.

“Newly Weds Foods is an international manufacturer and distributor of food ingredients that are used in thousands of products consumed around the world,” said Gov. Beshear. “We’re proud to welcome Newly Weds Foods to northern Kentucky and the Commonwealth. Soon more retail products on grocery store shelves and prepared items on restaurant menus in North America will contain ingredients made in Kentucky.”

Newly Weds Foods, a private, family owned business founded in 1932, is a global leader in food ingredient technology for the food processing and food service industries. The company employs more than 2,400 people worldwide.

“Demand for our products is growing around the world, and northern Kentucky provides a central location with an excellent workforce and transportation system,” said Charles T. Angell, Newly Weds Foods president. “We will be able to improve our service to our customers with this facility in northern Kentucky. We appreciate the level of cooperation and assistance provided to us from Boone County, Tri-ED, the local business community up to the Governor’s office.”

Newly Weds Foods purchased an existing 326,000-square-foot facility near the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. Newly Weds Foods joins an impressive group of companies in the business park, including Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America.

“We are thrilled that Newly Weds Foods will invest and open a new facility in Boone County that will create more than 100 new jobs for our region,” said Sen. John Schickel, of Union.

“Northern Kentucky’s workforce and reputation for excellence once again helped us attract a new company to our region,” said Rep. Addia Wuchner, of Florence. “Our region’s transportation infrastructure and our work ethic are second to none. We’re proud Newly Weds Foods will call Boone County home.”

“Newly Weds Foods joins a growing list of high-quality companies who recently expanded in our area, including L’Oreal, NorAm, DHL and iHerb,” said Gary Moore, Boone County Judge-Executive and chairman of Northern Kentucky Tri-ED. “Northern Kentucky is an ideal location for many companies because of our low cost of business, great workforce and logistical advantage. We thank Newly Weds Foods for its commitment to northern Kentucky and welcome this outstanding company to our community.”

To encourage the investment and job creation in Northern Kentucky, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) preliminarily approved the company for tax incentives up to $6 million through the Kentucky Business Investment program. The performance-based incentive allows a company to keep a portion of its investment over the term of the agreement through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments by meeting job and investment targets. The company was also approved for a $500,000 sales/use tax refund through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act.

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Built in the 1870s, the art deco structure in Lexington will be the new home of Indatus and Mocura. (Photo: Jim L. Patterson, Copyright 2006)

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear  has announced that two companies, Indatus and Mocura, both under the ownership of ICIM Corporation, plan to move from New Albany, IN to new headquarters set up in Louisville. Indatus and Mocura will create 100 new jobs and establish a tier-2 datacenter with a full network operations center and staff in the renovated historic building.

“We welcome Indatus and Mocura as new corporate citizens in Kentucky, and we realize just how significant headquarters are for our economy, bringing not only top-level jobs, but proven leaders and innovators to our communities,” said Gov. Beshear.

The property is registered as a historic building for art deco design in Kentucky.  It was also the original headquarters of Four Roses Bourbon, home to the Miller Paper Company, and, most recently, Bridges and Smith Paint Company.

Renovation of the historic site, touted as the “Gateway to Whisky Row” is estimated to be completed by late December 2013. The project also includes the refurbishing of 9,000 square feet on the first floor available for lease to a retail or restaurant space, as well as renovating 9,000 square feet of basement space.

Indatus is a 22-year-old, privately-held company, with products that have been in the “cloud” (running at least partially over the Internet on a remote server accessed by the user with a browser) for more than 10 years. These products and services are leading the way in cloud-based technologies, software and communications systems.

Mocura is an 18-month-old sister company to Indatus, which covers three areas of products and services that are solely focused on enterprise-level apps and data gathering.  The company’s market-ready mobile applications, custom-developed mobile applications and mobile device management tools utilize existing SaaS cloud architecture to manage data. Mocura grew more than 1,000 percent in the last 12 months and is quickly becoming a major player in the rapidly changing mobile business process arena.

“This project is such a great example of what happens when motivated government agencies and institutions work together with common purpose,” said Dave Durik, CEO of Indatus. “We are just extremely excited and honored to be the recipient of the attention.”

“This is exciting for Louisville and the Commonwealth of Kentucky because of the new jobs that will be created through this investment in our city and our state,” said Sen. Gerald Neal, of Louisville. “Along with new jobs, our city will also reap the benefits from economic growth and development.”

“It’s great when Louisville and a company both benefit by moving its operations to Louisville and creating new jobs,” said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. “It’s even better when they decide to renovate and modernize an older building, augmenting our sustainability practices.”

“The addition of Indatus and Mocura to the East Main Street corridor adds to the increasing density of technology firms in the NuLu, East Main, Nucleus area,” said Eileen Pickett, vice president of economic development for Greater Louisville Inc. “We are thrilled to see this growth and the evolution of the historically booming bourbon district becoming home to the latest innovations in technology.”

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Many governors reserve their attention for the largest projects that come to their states. But we often get releases from Kentucky in which Gov. Steve Beshear hails smaller job-producing initiatives. When we sat down with Gov. Beshear for this Governor’s Report, we asked him why he feels it’s important that every step forward, big or small, gets its share of the state spotlight during tough economic times.

Gov. Steve Beshear (Photo Credit: Office of the Governor)

“Since coming into office, my number one priority has been on the retention and creation of jobs,” he said. “Despite strenuous economic times, Kentucky has found ways to work with companies, big and small, to make investments for the future. Job by job and company by company, we’re turning Kentucky’s economy around, and I feel strongly that every job, every investment is worth celebrating.”

Gov. Beshear recently presided over the opening of the Kentucky-Argonne Battery Manufacturing R&D Center, which already has drawn at least one key player in advanced lithium storage materials to Lexington. Beshear is confident a full supplier network will develop in Kentucky to support the emerging advanced battery industry.

“As the lab’s reputation grows, so will its funding from federal grants and from research contracts with companies locating here to use this open access facility,” he said. “This builds a critical mass of research-based companies, which in turn will attract a network of suppliers. We’re already starting to see this happen with firms like nGimat, which moved part of its operations from Atlanta to Lexington in order to access the Kentucky-Argonne facility. We’re excited by this early success and are confident others will follow, especially as studies show that for every dollar invested in public research, there is up to four dollars invested by the private sector into industrial research and development.”

Kentucky plans to leverage biomass and biofuel resources as well.

“One of the goals in Kentucky’s  energy plan is to produce 12 percent of our motor fuels from biofuels by 2025. I still think that’s very achievable and we already have ethanol and biodiesel plants operating in the Commonwealth. The real potential for Kentucky lies in the more than 500,000 acres of farmland that can be converted to growing biofuels feedstocks, such as switchgrass, without impacting our food crops. This resource alone could provide more than 360 million gallons of ethanol per year,” Beshear said.

Gov. Beshear recently returned from another successful trade mission to Japan. Japanese-owned companies operate more than 156 facilities in Kentucky and the state has the second-highest Japanese foreign direct investment on a per capita basis. We asked the governor what has made Kentucky so attractive to Japanese investments.

“Japanese companies are drawn to Kentucky for a variety of reasons, including an extensive existing network of Japanese companies and the presence of multiple Japanese Saturday schools,” he said. “Because of our history with the Japanese business community, we also share a lot of personal connections and have built strong relationships over the years, which have cultivated a level of trust and confidence among companies to do business in Kentucky.”

Amazon has had a huge presence in the state for years, with several distribution/fulfillment centers and now a new customer service center. Beshear credited Kentucky’s geographic advantage as a decisive factor in the fierce competition among states for Amazon facilities.

“Kentucky is blessed with a great geographic location. Companies operating in our state can access over two-thirds of the U.S. market within a day. Logistically, this creates significant advantages in getting a product or service to market.  We are also home to the largest UPS Worldport Hub in North America and DHL’s U.S. hub, offering next-day service to the world,” the governor said.

Kentucky’s governor favors performance-based incentives like those available in the Kentucky Business Investment Program.

“All three forms of assistance [in the program] require companies to perform and each has its advantages,” he explained. “The difference is the timing of when the incentive is received.  Performance-based incentives require companies to perform prior to receiving an incentive. Companies must create jobs before claiming the wage assessment and be profitable before claiming a corporate income tax credit. Providing incentives after achieving a performance measure usually requires less time and resources than providing an up-front incentive.”

Ford’s assembly plant in Louisville.

Kentucky earned our 2011 Deal of the Year Gold Award for the new partnership with Ford, which will invest more than $1 billion in its Louisville plants and extend a relationship that stretches back nearly a century. Beshear outlined the critical factors that convinced Ford to double-down on its commitment to the state.

“We knew it would take a significant investment for Ford to retool.  As a result, we created new incentives allowing us to partner with Ford and reduce that burden so that more money could go into hiring employees, updating machinery, and ultimately improving their facilities,” he said. “Once their state-of-the-art manufacturing improvements were complete, we knew they would need a workforce capable of operating in an advanced manufacturing environment. Therefore, we committed $10 million to help Ford create that workforce. This type of commitment illustrated to Ford that Kentucky was in this partnership for the long haul.”

Gov. Beshear is confident the resurgence of manufacturing will continue to be a driver of the nation’s economic recovery, and Kentucky will help lead the charge.

“I am very confident that the resurgence of manufacturing in the U.S. will lead the economic recovery momentum, especially in the area of advanced manufacturing,” he said. “Kentucky has deep manufacturing roots, and it’s because of our strength in manufacturing, especially in the automotive industry, that our percentage employment increase rose faster than any other state in the eastern U.S. last year and was 7th highest overall.”

Gov. Beshear noted the irony of the manufacturing revival, especially in the wake of years of pronouncements by experts that manufacturing in the U.S. was “dead.”

“I’m just glad Kentucky didn’t drink the Kool-Aid,” the governor said with a smile.

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By Jack Rogers

Every year, Business Facilities selects the highest-impact projects and honors the agencies that brought them to fruition with our Economic Development Deal of the Year Awards. We also choose our State of the Year. Our mid-year double issue is where we unveil our annual State, Metro and International rankings.

We always do our best to make our awards and rankings the most comprehensive and credible in the community we serve, and it is in that spirit that we introduce our first annual Economic Development Awards, which will honor the agencies and organizations that have established and consistently executed the best practices in our industry, bringing measurable success in targeted economic development to the locations they represent.

We have created more than a dozen new awards categories, including overall excellence in economic development, best practices awards that cite achievements in specialized programs like workforce training and incentives, and awards for marketing excellence in the use of new media (including social networks and video).

New Standard of Excellence
The finalists for our new overall Economic Development Excellence awards were asked to prepare a detailed submission that summarized the most-productive project development in their locations and gave our judges an overview of the economic development strategy they have deployed to ensure sustained long-term growth. The information provided to the judges included the top projects (initiated since the beginning of 2011), both in terms of capital investment and job creation. These projects included new facilities, expansions, relocations or corporate headquarters.

In their strategic narratives, finalists identified the growth sectors they are targeting and described the specialized tools being deployed to achieve growth in these sectors. We encouraged them to specify their approach to workforce training, specialized incentives and the support they provide to the development of start-ups, small businesses and other entrepreneurial initiatives. Our judges assessed the diversity and scope of the agency’s overall economic development program (in terms of the expansion of existing industries as well as the attraction of new ventures).

Our new Achievement Awards throw the spotlight on agencies and organizations that have established the best practices in their specified category. In some cases, the selections were obvious, while in others—particularly in our evaluation of the universe of targeted incentives—we had to put on an extra pot of coffee while we winnowed the field.

So, without further ado, here are the winners of our first annual Economic Development Awards.

Population Greater Than 500k
Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
Our judges had a tough time selecting a winner from among the finalists for our first annual Economic Development Excellence Award (Population Greater Than 500k). There were many worthy contenders, but when all factors were considered one location emerged as the consensus choice: the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.

The cosmopolitan capital of the Lone Star State has consistently impressed us with its diversity of industry, superior system of higher education, top-flight skilled workforce and vibrant culture. The tremendous economic vitality the Greater Austin area has experienced in recent years is a testament to the best practices established by its first-class economic development organization.

The numbers don’t lie, and they are outstanding: In 2011, 51 businesses expanded operations in Austin while 35 new companies chose to relocate to the Texas city from other parts of the country. These activities created more than 8,000 new jobs in Austin, bringing in more than $495 million in new wages and an overall positive economic impact for the region of $1.9 billion.

The Austin Chamber leads a regional five-county strategy for job creation through recruitment and expansion in Central Texas. Working collaboratively with regional partners, the Chamber aggressively promotes the area as a cost-competitive location for targeted industry segments, including clean energy, creative media, convergence technologies, life sciences and corporate/ professional operations. The Chamber also has worked to establish new-growth beachheads in automotive technologies and wireless/mobile industries, while defending and expanding Austin’s established position as one of the nation’s leading semiconductor hubs.

The Austin Chamber has embraced education as a lynchpin to sustainable economic development. Its innovative approach to education reform, emphasizing tracking measurable, outcomes-based performance, already has blown past its original 2010 goal of increasing Austin’s college enrollment by 20,000 students.

The field of contenders for our top Excellence Award was so rich, that we selected not one, but two honorable mentions: Greater New Orleans Inc. and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce.

In the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, many people still think of New Orleans as a wounded city on the mend. The fact is, the Crescent City is now a shining model of diverse, growth-oriented success. 2011 was a remarkable year for Greater New Orleans, capped by being named the fastest improving economy in the United States by The Wall Street Journal.

Among the big ticket projects announced in 2011 in New Orleans were NASA’s manufacturing facility for its new Space Launch System (expected to employ 500), digital media player Gameloft’s second North American studio (bringing 150 jobs) and the expansion of Australian steel manufacturer Bradken’s foundry, an $18-million investment creating up to 400 new jobs.

Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO) takes a bifurcated approach to economic development, focusing on business development (business retention, expansion and attraction) and product development (policy reform, workforce development, regional brand management and access to capital for entrepreneurs.

The Greater OKC Chamber has been a job-creating juggernaut in recent months, with its top 10 projects notching more than $1 billion in capital investment, including the expansions of fabricated metal product manufacturer W&W Steel Co. and oil-and-gas-extraction specialists Helmerich and Payne, and the much-heralded relocation from Wichita of Boeing’s architectural, engineering and related services, which brought up to 900 jobs to OKC.

The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber serves as the one-stop manager of economic development for the Oklahoma City region. The Chamber’s Economic Development Division focuses on business retention and expansion (BRE) activities; recruitment of new companies and investment; research, demographic and economic modeling; and entrepreneurial development. In addition, the education and workforce division, marketing division and government relations division all support the overall economic development mission and goals.

Greater OKC’s research department is the primary source for business and economic intelligence for the 10-county partnership region, the Chamber members and the economic development team, delivering services including detailed demographic analyses, economic impacts of individual and aggregate projects, market and employer profiles and more. The research department produces a number of publications throughout the year including various industry studies, a quarterly cost of living index and an annual economic forecast.

The OKC Chamber also takes the lead for business recruitment for the city, county and 10-county Regional Partnership. If a company has workforce training needs, Oklahoma’s CareerTech System and Training for Industry Program (TIP) are available. The TIP program works one-on-one with companies to deliver specific training programs. It also offers ongoing, customized training to keep employees up-to-date and productive.

Population 200k – 500k
Commerce Lexington Inc.
When we assessed the best practices for mid-sized locations, the consistent sparkle from a gem in the heart of Bluegrass Country caught our eye. Year in and year out, the folks at Commerce Lexington Inc. are setting the standard for a full-service, highly professional economic development effort, making the organization a clear choice as the winner of our Economic Development Excellence Award in the Population 200k-500k category. The numbers alone don’t tell the success story for the Lexington, KY region, but they are impressive: overall, in 2011, more than $133 million in new capital investment was pulled into the region, including about $67.5 million for the top 10 projects alone.

Commerce Lexington Inc.’s economic development strategy focuses on three core initiatives—business attraction, business retention and expansion, and entrepreneurial development. The aim of these efforts is to create new primary jobs that increase the per capita income, as well as new income entering the community, and to create greater capital investment in the region. In tandem with these efforts, Commerce Lexington also implements community development strategies supporting minority business and workforce development.

Commerce Lexington approaches these strategies with a regional perspective. Recruiting new industry and investment in the Bluegrass Region is a team effort, with participants including the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development and the Bluegrass Alliance, a regional economic development group that brings together professionals, utility companies and assets from the University of Kentucky with a focus on development in the central Kentucky area.

Hardly a week goes by without a major job-creating investment announcement from Commerce Lexington. Most recently, GE Lighting said it will invest approximately $10 million at its Lexington Lamp Plant to produce a new line of energy-efficient lighting products. The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority approved GE Lighting for tax incentives up to $600,000 through the Kentucky Business Investment program. The performance-based incentive allows the company to keep a portion of its investment over the term of the agreement through corporate income tax credits and wage assessments by meeting job and investment targets.

Our honorable mention for this category goes to GO Topeka/Greater Topeka (KS) Chamber of Commerce. GO Topeka’s efforts on behalf of Topeka and Shawnee counties yielded a combined capital investment of $250 million in 2011. The “icing” on Topeka’s economic development cake came from Mars Chocolate’s decision to build its first U.S. factory in more than 35 years in Topeka. The $250-million factory, which is expected to have an economic impact of $3.24 billion over the next 10 years (creating 425 new jobs), garnered an honorable mention in our 2011 Economic Development Deal of the Year Awards. In addition to food manufacturing, GO Topeka is targeting new development in biomedical, back office/financial services, logistics and distribution and clean technology.

Population 50k – 200k
Midland Tomorrow (MI)
The winner of our Economic Development Excellence Award for the Population 50k-200k category, Midland Tomorrow, serves Midland County, MI, a hub of chemical and alternative energy manufacturing in the Midwest.

The core of Midland Tomorrow’s work involves what the organization likes to call “economic gardening”—providing assistance to local second- and third-stage manufacturers in defining their growth plans and connecting them with available local resources to assist those plans in six key areas: human resources and organization, finance, innovation, sales and commercialization, marketing data and analysis and core strategy/CEO leadership. Midland Tomorrow holds annual retention visits with more than 90 local companies annually.

Dow Corning has invested heavily in Midland in recent years, putting $180 million into local plant expansions from 2006 to 2011. This investment was made possible by a blend of state tax credits and local property tax abatements; for these incentives, Midland Tomorrow acted as the liaison between the company and local and state municipalities.

Dow Chemical, meanwhile, has launched a group of projects in the last two years that are projected to bring over 3,000 jobs to the area and invest over $600 million into the community. Dow is investing heavily in its Dow AgroSciences business this year, with $132 million slated in plant upgrades and improvements to support production. In addition, the Dow Business Process Service Center, a joint venture with India-based Tata Consultancy Services, opened in Midland in the summer of 2011; this facility, which provides back-end business services for Dow and other clients, accounts for 1250 of the jobs total of 3,000.

Dow has also launched two projects that relate directly to Midland Tomorrow’s business attraction efforts: Dow Solar Solutions (manufacturing photovoltaic roof shingles for residential applications) and Dow Kokam Advanced Battery Group (a partnership with Kokam America to manufacture advanced lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles). These two projects form the nexus of Midland’s burgeoning alternative energy manufacturing cluster.

An Honorable Mention in this category went to the City of South Jordan, UT.

The demographics of South Jordan are extremely favorable to retail development. Households in the city have higher than average incomes; In fact, 62 percent of South Jordan’s workforce receives an annual income of $75,000 or more compared to only 36 percent of households in Salt Lake County.

The RiverPark Corporate Office Park on the east side of the City provides over 1 million square feet of Class “A” office space and is the home to the majority of the 27 corporate headquarters within the City.

Population Less Than 50k
Ardmore (OK) Development Authority
An economic development growth philosophy centered on quality and diversity that benefits the community is the hallmark of Ardmore Development Authority, making the Oklahoma organization our Economic Development Excellence winner in the Population Less Than 50k category.

The Development Authority is poised to meet a diverse segment of business needs. With four industrial parks totaling more than 3,000 acres, a variety of shovel-ready sites are available. The Authority also offers unique build-to-suit options and has successfully constructed, leased or sold over 4 million square feet of building space.

Technology development is another target for the ADA. Ardmore’s 40-acre Technology Park is part of a 240-acre, ADA-owned development that includes an innovative housing subdivision started and developed by the ADA, commercial development and the tech park with incubator. Nearly 75 acres is set aside in the park for green space and trails. Targeted companies include, biotechnology, sensors and advanced manufacturing. Companies who have been awarded an SBIR Phase I grant and have been asked to apply for Phase II funding are eligible for a $50,000 incentive should they locate in the tech park. In addition, the incubator offers sophisticated equipment and a clean room for use by tenants.

Aerospace is another development target due to the capabilities at the Ardmore Airpark. This 2500-acre ADA-owned facility includes two runways (the longest is 9,000 feet) and capacity to handle wide-body freight aircraft. The Airpark is a designated foreign trade zone which boasts interstate access, rail on site and air shipment capabilities. A logistics leader that has embraced this location is the 1.2 million square foot Dollar General Distribution Center.

Bioscience development in Ardmore has a significant footprint with the Oklahoma State University Bioscience Center and the Noble Foundation, a 300-employee research institute known worldwide.

An excellent industry tailored workforce development program is found at the Southern Oklahoma Technology Center. Local industries benefit from tailored programs designed to train potential new employees and upgrade training for existing employees. But, Ardmore believes that workforce development begins with K-12 education.

The Ardmore Chamber-sponsored Cornerstone program is a $3.2 million effort that implements and administers a testing program that provides extensive and immediate feedback for instructors, data warehousing, pay-for-performance for teachers, total funding for a summer school program, signing bonuses for teachers in hard-to-fill subjects and the AVID program (Advancement Via Individual Determination).

Our Honorable Mention in the Population Less Than 50k Category goes to Jackson County Industrial Development Corp.

Headquartered in Seymour, IN, the Jackson County IDC was created in 1984 in the midst of double-digit unemployment, a declining tax base and few jobs for the next generation of workers. Located along Interstate 65 in southern Indiana, one hour south of Indianapolis, IN, one hour north of Louisville, KY and 90 minutes west of Cincinnati, OH, community leaders believed the area was ripe for development.

Within the first five years, the area welcomed several new industries, including three international companies, as a result of attraction efforts of JCIDC in partnership with the state and utility companies. By 1990, more than 1,000 new jobs had been created and the assessed value of Jackson County had more than doubled.

In the 1990s, JCIDC created the Workforce Partnership. Today, the Partnership helps facilitate a number of programs for middle school and high school students, plus post-secondary and the incumbent workforce. Among those programs are “Dream It—Do It” (which encourages careers in advanced manufacturing) and Project Lead the Way (which places emphasis on STEM classes: science, technology, engineering and math) as well as job shadowing, senior mock interviews (for all seniors in the five county high schools), company tours, classroom presentations and career days.

In 2012, more than 20 businesses and industries contribute to the Partnership, while overall, more than 70 entities help support the efforts of JCIDC. JCIDC worked with the Seymour Redevelopment Commission to help create a new local loan program: ECLIPSE (EConomic Loan Incentive Program for SEymour), which recently helped attract a new distribution center to kick off 2012. That announcement followed a record-year in 2011, when JCIDC reported more than $81 million in promised investment which bettered the previous high of $68 million in 2005.

Achievement in Targeted Incentives
When we decided to create an awards category for Achievement in Targeted Incentives, we knew we were risking eyestrain due to the wealth of worthy candidates from across the nation. As we begin to scan the most impressive incentives and winnow them down to the most creative and effective offerings, it also become apparent that there would have to be more than one winner. In fact, there are five, and here they are:

Louisiana Economic Development takes the award for the Digital Media and Software Incentive, which is fueling the explosive growth of the Bayou State’s digital media industry. This incentive provides a 25 percent refundable tax credit on qualified production expenditures and a 35 percent refundable tax credit for Louisiana resident labor expenditures. There are no minimum investment requirements and no cap on costs. The incentive is eligible to digital interactive media productions in Louisiana, excluding largely static Internet sites and products regulated under the Louisiana Game Control Law.

While we generally skewed our evaluation in favor of recently introduced incentives, a venerable program from the heartland could not be ignored. Thus, we award the Nebraska Department of Economic Development for the Nebraska Super Advantage program, which specifically rewards all non-retail companies that create higher-paying jobs. To qualify, the new jobs must pay at least 150 percent of the state average wage, or 200 percent of the county average, whichever is greater. Companies that create 75 new jobs and make a $10-million capital investment—or 50 new jobs and a $100-million investment—can receive a sales and use tax refund on capital purchases; a 10 percent wage credit on new employee compensation; a 15 percent investment tax credit; and a 10-year exemption on all personal property.

In our New Jersey Business Report this month, we highlight some major projects that were spurred by the state’s Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit, which has garnered our Achievement in Targeted Incentives Award for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. This forward-thinking financial tool is designed to spur private capital investment, business development and employment by providing tax credits for businesses planning a large expansion or relocating to one of New Jersey’s designated Urban Transit Hubs. The program offers developers, owners or tenants up to 100 percent of a qualified capital investment made within an eight period. Taxpayers may apply 10 percent of the total credit amount per year over a ten-year period against their corporate business tax, insurance premiums tax or gross income tax liability. Developers or owners must make a minimum $50 million capital investment in a single business facility, and at least 250 full-time employees must work at that facility. Tenants in a qualified business facility can represent at least $17.5 million of the capital investment in the facility, and up to three tenants may aggregate to meet the 250 employee requirement.

The Mississippi Development Authority earned an award for the Mississippi Aerospace Initiative Incentives Program, which provides tax incentives to companies that manufacture or assemble components for the aerospace industry or provide research, development or training services for the sector and are looking to locate or expand in the state. These incentives include a 10-year exemption from income and franchise taxes, as well as a sales and use tax exemption for the start-up of the facility. In order to qualify, companies must invest a minimum of $30 million and create at least 100 full-time jobs.

With a vision to fuel economic growth in Northern Kentucky and lay the foundation of an informatics-industry cluster, a super business accelerator called UpTech has been created to provide startup companies with what every new business seeks—financial and developmental support. We are pleased to bestow our Achievement in Targeted Incentives Award on Northern Kentucky Tri-County Economic Development Corp. for the UpTech Super Business Accelerator.

In a highly creative and unique initiative, UpTech is committed to funding 50 of the best and brightest early-stage informatics companies from the United States and abroad. UpTech will invest up to $100,000 into each of the 50 winning startup companies that demonstrate their commercial potential through an application and review process. UpTech will also provide each business with six months of free, premium riverfront office space in, with a view of the Cincinnati skyline, along with essential business support.

The UpTech winners will also receive support from faculty, staff and graduate assistants and two student interns from Northern Kentucky University’s College of Informatics for each company along with on-campus informatics labs and facilities for collaboration, events, and seminars.

Achievement in Public-Private Partnership
Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance
Over the past decade, we have chronicled the proliferation of public-private partnerships as an alternative or supplement to state-run economic development agencies and/or departments of commerce. Not all public-private partnerships are created equal. A few have emphasized the private side to the extent that transparency and credible metrics for job creation get lost in the equation.

But the best public-private partnerships bring together a high-powered team of business leaders and economic development specialists who leverage the assets of a region to establish a coherent strategy for development and brand the location as a prime site for new business.

The winner of our Achievement in Public-Private Partnership Award has set the standard for best practices in this dominant new economic development model. Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance has forged a powerhouse collection of area CEOs into a driving force for growth. The CEO Council of Greater Fort Lauderdale recently has been involved in several high-profile initiatives that are raising national awareness for the region. A TV commercial produced by Zimmerman Advertising has featured CEO Council members Wayne Huizenga, Mike Jackson, Roy Krause and Keith Koenig along with County Administrator Bertha Henry and NFL Hall of Famer Dwight Stephenson. The TV ads, which aired for six months in the NY/NJ/CT and Boston markets and on JetBlue’s in-flight TV, conclude with Huizenga’s memorable tag line: “Hey, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep” The top execs also appeared in print display ads.

Our Honorable Mentions in the Achievement in Public-Private Partnership category went to Buffalo Niagara Enterprise (BNE), Virginia Economic Development Partnership and the Upstate South Carolina Alliance.

BNE was cited for its success in branding an eight-county region of Western New York as a prime venue for development which offers excellent infrastructure, a superior workforce, a positive business climate and abundant natural resources. We were particularly impressed with effectiveness of the partnership’s efforts to draw new business to New York from Canada through its marketing campaign, A Million Reasons to Expand Your Business to Buffalo Niagara.

Achievement in Downtown Revitalization
Brick City Development Corp.
For our first annual Achievement in Downtown Revitalization Award, we took note not only of recent progress in the cities that made our list of finalists, but also how far they have come in breathing new life into their urban centers. After a decade-long malaise, Newark, NJ is undergoing a renaissance that is transforming its downtown into a model of 21st Century urban development. This effort has been spearheaded by our award winner, Brick City Development Corp.

As detailed in this month’s New Jersey Business Report, Newark has made wise use of the state’s Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit incentive to spur major projects, including the relocation of Panasonic and the planned new headquarters for insurance giant Prudential.

Construction has begun on the new Courtyard by Marriott at the Prudential Center, a mixed-use hotel and retail project that is being billed as a significant catalyst to the economic growth of the downtown Newark area by bringing added new investments, ratables, and employment to the Brick City.

Located just a few blocks from Newark Penn Station, the Courtyard by Marriott will be the first new hotel for the City’s downtown in nearly four decades. The development is expected to generate approximately 175 one-time construction jobs, and a total of between 50 and 75 permanent jobs through the hotel and retail operations. Marriott International will manage the hotel operation.

Tucker Development Corporation, a developer of shopping center and mixed-use properties throughout the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, is developing the project, and will lease and manage the development’s approximately 14,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.

Some of the biggest names in politics, finance and real estate broke ground recently on Teachers Village, a mixed-use development in downtown Newark that will create two school buildings, which will house three schools and a daycare center; more than 200 moderately-priced rental apartments for Newark teachers; and more than 20 on-street retail establishments, which will include restaurants, medical offices and local and national stores.

Ron Beit, managing member of lead developer RBH Group, was joined by Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker and deputy mayor for economic development, Adam Zipkin; Governor Chris Christie; Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, which is a capital provider in Teachers Village; international investor Nicolas Berggruen, president of Berggruen Holdings and a major partner in the project; and Richard Meier, the Newark-born, nationally renowned architect, who created the master plan for the project.

The first phase of a larger development, Teachers Village will result in 460 temporary construction jobs and 460 permanent jobs, according to estimates. Retail tenants will be able to begin building out their spaces by the end of this year and open for business in the summer of 2013, and the first residents will be able to occupy apartments in the fall of 2013. The residential units cover about 200,000 square feet, and the units are being pre-marketed to Newark-based teachers.

Centrally located on Halsey Street, Teachers Village will also allow for the expansion and relocation of three charter schools—Great Oaks, Discovery Charter School and Team Academy—as well as the CHEN School daycare. The two school buildings will represent about 90,000 square feet and serve about 800 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. CHEN will occupy about 11,000 square feet and will service about 150 children.

New Jersey’s largest city has made steady progress in attracting new businesses to the city while maintaining its traditional employment base, a growing center of leading institutions of higher education and a world-class logistics and transportation hub. We are confident Newark has set in place the foundation for future success and have adopted an economic development strategy that will continue to produce positive results.

Achievement in Workforce Training
Louisiana Economic Development
Loyal followers of our annual state rankings report will not be surprised that Louisiana Economic Development is the hands-down winner of our first Achievement in Workforce Training Award for the Louisiana FastStart program. FastStart’s innovative training initiative has been the perennial front runner in our ranking of state training programs. FastStart’s innovative, customized programs are available to companies that meet eligibility requirements and are aligned with Louisiana’s diverse economic develop- ment targets, which include digital media, headquarters and business operations, service industries, advanced and traditional manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, and research and development.

To qualify for FastStart, a company must first commit to creating a net of at least 15 new, permanent manufacturing jobs, or a net of at least 50 new, permanent service-related jobs. Each request is evaluated prior to project commencement to ensure all eligibility requirements are met.

FastStart played a pivotal role in the development of Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, which recently produced an Academy Award-winning animated short.

Honorable Mentions in our Achievement in Workforce Training category went to Georgia’s Quick Start program and the readysc Training Program in South Carolina.

Quick Start Employee Training provides customized training for new employees in skill-based jobs at no cost to qualifying companies. The training program is given to the company for its future use. Quick Start provides training space, instructors and all needed materials related to the program, potentially saving companies millions of dollars in training costs. The readysc™ program, offered through the S.C. Technical College System, provides pre-job training at little or no cost for eligible new or expanding companies with curricula tailored to meet a company’s workforce requirements. The comprehensive program includes recruiting, screening, testing, developing customized instruction material along with coordinating and upfitting training space.

Achievement in Reorganization of Economic Development
New Jersey Partnership for Action
The Garden State for many years has had to fight an uphill battle against the perception that its business climate has been, to put it diplomatically, a bit surly. Two years ago, a new governor set about to change that perception with one of the most comprehensive reorganizations of statewide economic developments we’ve seen in a long time. Under the umbrella of the New Jersey Partnership for Action and headed by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, the plan consists of three highly-focused organizational elements—Choose New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, and the Business Action Center—that provide economic development services, link companies to incentive programs and attract international investment to others. The change has been dramatic and effective, and it made our choice for the first annual winner of our Achievement in Reorganization of Economic Development Award an easy one.

Achievement in Ports/Foreign Trade Zone Development
Philadelphia Regional Port Authority
Philadelphia has one of the oldest and most venerable ports in the United States. It’s harbor often was the point of arrival for the nation’s founding fathers when they emigrated from Great Britain in the early 1700s. But Philadelphia is not resting on its laurels: the port is busy preparing to meet the challenges of 21st Century commerce, including an expansion of the Panama Canal that will see huge cargo ships arriving at East Coast ports directly from Asia beginning in 2014. Thus we bestow our first annual Achievements in Ports/Foreign Trade Zone Development Award on the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority. PRPA has renewed its MOU for the Panama Canal Authority and it has undertaken a channel-deepening project along the 102-mile Delaware River shipping lane. We also are impressed with PRPA’s ability to maintain and grow a thriving shipping hub while undertaking these improvements, evidenced by double-digit increases in cargo tonnage at the port in the past two years, despite a very challenging national and regional economy.

Achievement in High-Tech Cluster Development
When we decided to honor Achievement in High-Tech Cluster Development, we quickly realized that we could not limit this award to a single technology sector. So we have selected five standard-bearers to be our first recipients of this award, which is our recognition of the national centers of excellence in each of these emerging high-tech growth clusters. Our winners are: Kansas Bioscience Authority, for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, soon to be the nation’s premier biodefense facility, located in the heart of the Kansas animal health corridor; Commerce Lexington and the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development for the Kentucky-Argonne Battery Manufacturing R&D Center, which is in the forefront of the development of lithium-ion batteries for use in electric vehicles; Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities for the Solar Zone at UA Science and Tech Park, located in the heart of Arizona’s “solar city,” the leading U.S. hub for solar energy manufacturing; the Capital Region (NY) Economic Development Corp., for the CNSE Nanotech complex, perhaps the most advanced research facility in the world for the development of nanotech-scale semiconductors; and the Virginia Partnership for the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing. The Commonwealth Center is anchored by jet maker Rolls Royce’s two major facilities in northern Virginia (the first of which was our 2008 Deal of the Year Gold Award winner).

Building Inspiration Award
The Group C Media Building Inspiration Award is a our recognition of an economic development agency that has exhibited exceptional character and a professional, coordinated response to an unexpected challenge that tested the resolve of the community. Our first annual Building Inspiration Award goes to the Joplin (MO) Area Chamber of Commerce.

On May 22, 2011, the deadliest tornado to hit the U.S. in more than a century tore through the heart of Joplin, MO. The mile-wide twister, with 200 m.p.h. winds, left a 12-mile-long path of destruction and took 161 lives from a city of 50,000. It flattened more than 7,500 homes and 557 businesses. Nine of the city’s schools were destroyed or severely damaged, including Joplin High School. Fortunately, the tornado hit on a Sunday and all of the schools were empty.

Within hours of the deadly May 22 storm, the world began to understand the solid character of the people of Joplin as story after story emerged of heroic acts of individual courage and sacrifice in the face of certain death, including the nurses at St. John’s Regional Medical Center who ran upstairs to save bedridden patients as the tornado slammed directly into the hospital, carrying away its top floor. Six people died at the medical center, but thanks to the heroic staff, 183 were safely evacuated.

The medical center became an iconic image of the May 22 storm, its windows blown out and its Medivac helicopter lying on its side. So did the local Home Depot, demolished beyond recognition, shards of its familiar orange sign winding around twisted debris on the ground.

Even while they were still assessing the damage in the hours after the tornado struck, Joplin’s can-do residents rolled up their sleeves and began to rebuild.

Less than a week after the storm wreaked havoc, St. John’s resumed operations. A temporary tent hospital was set up across the street from the wrecked building. At the ravaged Home Depot, employees in orange vests were busy helping customers stock up on building materials piled high on tables in the parking lot of the demolished store. Workers hammered away in another section of the lot, putting up a 30,000-square-foot temporary building.

On May 26, just four days after the storm hit, Joplin opened a Business Recovery Center (BRC), the fastest BRC opening in the history of the U.S. Small Business Administration. A Business Recovery Fund was established which raised $50,000 in its first 48 hours. Joplin’s businesses managed to keep 3,000 of a total of 5,000 displaced workers on their payrolls without interruption.

Perhaps most impressive of all, within two days of the disaster Joplin Schools Superintendent C.J. Huff announced that, without a doubt, schools would reopen on schedule on Aug. 17, 2011. On the date Huff had designated, a new Joplin High School opened its doors in a facility that was constructed in just 55 days in a vacant department store at the back of a shopping mall. Temporary modular facilities also opened to replace the eight elementary schools that were damaged during the storm. Despite the widespread displacement, 6,978 students were marked present for the first day of school on Aug. 17, just 750 less than the enrollment at the end of last year.

Today, less than a year after the disaster, 443 of the businesses that were damaged or destroyed by the tornado have reopened. The Small Business Administration has approved $11.7 million in disaster loans for the businesses of Joplin. The Joplin Tomorrow Fund, launched by former Sen. John Danforth, has raised $1.4 million.

It is our privilege to bestow our first Building Inspiration award to the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce—and to the people of Joplin, MO, whose courage and tenacity have inspired everyone.

Achievement in New Media
Best Use of Social Media
Pasco County (FL) EDC
Pasco County Economic Development Council realized that their audience was to be reached not only through their website, but also through various networking tools. A set of five goals were defined at the outset of their campaign, which supported them in knowing what action steps needed to be taken. They understood that social media marketing is a moving target and took the proper actions to strengthen their efforts (i.e., hiring a social media specialist, creating a campaign around their slogan, and producing their own content). Pasco County’s branding and design was also very consistent across all platforms, something that a lot of organizations miss the mark on because they are trying to do too much with social media.

Pasco’s actions have yielded impressive growth. Their Facebook page has received close to 5,200 post views (up 264 percent) and their Twitter page has grown from 30 to more than 185 followers (up 375 percent) since January 1. While there is no direct correlation between their social media efforts and their main website, they have seen 60 percent growth in their page visits in 2012. Their rapid growth shows that their efforts have been successful in this campaign.

Best Use of Video
Sumter County, SC
We received nearly a dozen online video submissions for our first annual Best Use of Media Award. The standout came from Sumter County, SC. Sumter’s video was a highly professional and eye-pleasing presentation which concisely detailed the business opportunities in the area while giving a nod to its history and quality of life.

Business Facilities thanks Jason Hickey (president, Hickey & Associates), Philip Anderson (president, PW Anderson and Partners), Jan Dickinson (president, The Dickinson Consulting Group) and Jay Garner (president and founder, Garner Economics) for their assistance in judging our Economic Development Awards.

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Waupaca Mill

By Ed Shulman
From the March/April 2012 issue

With bailed-out industry giant GM back on top and the recovery picking up steam, industry analysts forecast 2012 global light vehicle assembly to be 83.5 million units, a 10 percent increase compared to 2011 estimates of 75.9 million units.

General Motors has claimed the number one spot in the automotive industry just two years after GM filed for bankruptcy. According to media reports, the automaker has topped sales in every corner of the globe, managing to increase profits despite years of financial struggles.

GM suffered its share of ups and downs over the past decade, but saw the worst of its struggles in 2009 when it filed for bankruptcy. In an attempt to restructure the company, GM let go of several of its top lines, including Pontiac and Saturn, in addition to selling its subprime auto loan business.

Since that time, the company slowly moved toward recovery. It has been able to repay more than half of its TARP funds received from the government, while also allowing GM to reenter the subprime business and pushing to sell shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Now, after selling 640,000 more cars and trucks than it did in 2010 and earning more than $7 billion in profits in three quarters last year, the company pushed back to the top of the auto industry in 2011, surpassing last year’s winner, Toyota.

Toyota took the spot as the top automaker in 2010, but suffered massive losses after the tsunami in Japan devastated many of the company’s plants, impacting its ability to build cars and ship parts to other automakers around the world. Now, experts say it the largest Japanese automaker is recovering from its losses and gearing up for a strong year.

Ford is also among the competition GM faces with sales up 11 percent in the past year. With that said, auto consumers may see a rise in incentives and deals as automakers contend for the top spot.

Autofacts, PwC’s automotive forecasting service, forecasts 2012 global light vehicle assembly to be 83.5 million units, a 10 percent increase compared to 2011 estimates of 75.9 million units. Although complex macroeconomic and geopolitical issues remain, strong vehicle production in the first half of 2011 is driving assembly volumes to increase over prior estimates. Chinese and Indian markets are driving significant growth in the baseline global assembly estimates.

Japan’s auto industry is fighting back with the majority of the country’s vehicle manufacturers and suppliers expected to be back to full tilt by September. Japan’s faster than anticipated recovery has also contributed to the upward revision of the global assembly estimates.

The country has been rebuilding its industry over the summer months and is now on course for an output of 8.4 million units for 2011—some 221,000 more than had been previously expected. Autofacts also predicts that globally, total light vehicle assembly will be 75.9 million units in 2011, nearly a 6 percent increase from 2010 levels.

“While economic uncertainty continues, light vehicle production thus far is demonstrating resilience with stronger than expected growth,” said Calum MacRae, PwC’s lead automotive analyst, Autofacts. “Perhaps the most significant element to the third quarter forecast is the faster than expected recovery of the Japanese automotive value chain, with most manufacturers expecting full capacity to be restored by September.”

Inflationary fears and registration quotas have contributed to a slowdown in vehicle sales growth in China. In response, the Chinese government has announced new incentives, which could boost demand in the second half of the year from the 5.8 percent recorded in the first half. Europe’s sales environment remains weak to mixed across primary markets, but production is being supported by strong export growth to China, Russia, Turkey and the US.

China’s coastal cities are coping with severe traffic congestion and Beijing, by example, has limited new car registrations to only 240,000 in 2011. Automotive sales in India have also moderated. As of June 2011, the Indian market has reported 16 percent annual growth compared with 34 percent in 2010.

Sluggish economic growth, weak consumer spending and Japanese inventory shortages have caused a mid-year sales slump in the US market. While North America’s automotive supply chain continues to address capacity constraints it is still on course for a 2011 production forecast of nearly 13 million units, a roughly 1 million unit increase from 2010.

Perry County: Bringing the Right Components

Finding balance is often a never-ending quest that consumes lifetimes. For the lucky few, that quest is realized when the right components are brought together to achieve the desired goal.

The balance that has been achieved in Perry County, IN, was forged by dedicated visionaries who committed their efforts to bringing together key partnerships for the ultimate goal of balancing the abundant natural resources with a progressive business climate. The end result is the ability to execute successful, world-class business operations in an atmosphere that lends itself to breathtaking views, outdoor adventures and tranquility. For outside observers, an afternoon cruise through the tree-lined hills and valleys can occasionally result in a glimpse of a high-tech production facility that is in the midst of competing on a global scale.

“There were a multitude of locations that would have worked along the river,” commented Bruce Tesch, Plant Manager of ThyssenKrupp Waupaca, an iron foundry. “This community just jumped forward and provided everything that ThyssenKrupp was requiring.”

Some of this rural county’s business successes are directly related to its location. Sitting in the heart of the United States near the geographic center of North America and the median center of the US population, Perry County sits on the banks of the Ohio River, the nation’s busiest waterway. The county’s proximity to two commercial airports, coupled with interstate access, port facilities and railroad services make it ideally situated to meet the transportation needs of any commodity-based business.

As the epi-center for gray and ductile iron products, much of Perry County’s productivity focuses on automotive and heavy construction components and component parts. ThyssenKrupp Waupaca’s Plant 5 operation features the largest vertical molding machine in the world to aid with production of parts for end-users including Toyota, Ford, Caterpillar, Chrysler and Cummins. Webb Wheel Products (an OEM producer of components for the heavy truck industry) and ATTC Manufacturing (a supplier of more than 80 component parts to Toyota for use in 10 different vehicles) both utilize advanced robotic machining equipment in their processes.

This advance manufacturing environment helps these companies to produce the next generation of products faster, cheaper and cleaner. As manufacturing changes with newly adopted methods of production, the Perry County business community promotes the advancement of new, technologically enhanced methods of production. In addition, employees are encouraged to offer their input into processes and career enhancement, both of which further improve the company’s competitive advantage.

Those businesses that have chosen to come and stay in Perry County have done so to take advantage of the array of economic opportunities balanced with attractive living options available for employees and their families. At the end of their work-day, employees of these companies have the opportunity to participate in an assortment of activities including family–oriented events, outdoor-recreation in the Hoosier National Forest, and water sports on the Ohio River.

Companies in Perry County have had the opportunity to benefit from the strong partnerships that were established years ago by those visionaries. The community’s commitment to working with companies to help to insure each business remains competitive in a global economy manifests itself on the first day of contact.

“Perry County really rose to the top from the standpoint of the assistance they gave to making it come together and the real strong pro-active nature they took and the clear interest in having the business,” noted Kent Finkbiner, President of Webb Wheel Products who located in the County in 2004.

Most recently the Perry County Development Corporation, the county’s lead economic development agency, addressed a warehouse need of a local business. The corporation identified an older building in the downtown Tell City area and rehabilitated the building with the end result being a 52,000 square foot warehouse with three loading docks. The business now has improved efficiencies and closer scrutiny of its inventory.

With a population of nearly 20,000 people, Perry County offers the charm of a smaller, rural community combined with the progressive corporate attitude and sophisticated infrastructure usually found in larger metropolitan areas. Leadership in Perry County proactively works to grow the regional economy through business attraction, retention and expansion; through encouraging and supporting entrepreneurs; and through providing government and workforce advocacy. All of this is done with the ultimate goal of positively impacting each business’ bottom line expenses while maximizing employee income and overall quality of life.

To further explore the benefits of conducting business in Perry County the Perry County Development Corporation has posted company testimonials online.

Harrison County: Epicenter of Supplier Network

Given the strong presence of Ford Motor Company in Louisville, KY, Harrison County is an ideal location for suppliers to the automotive industry. Recently, ICON Metal Forming, a metal stamping company in Corydon began hiring to make parts they will produce for the new Ford Escape that will be made at the Louisville Assembly Plant about 35 miles away in Louisville. ICON presently employs 300 workers. The Economic Development Corporation and the County Government have assisted ICON with expansion projects in the past by supplying incentives to train workers and reduce the company’s property taxes.

The incentive programs offered by the ED Corporation are quite flexible and can be customized to meet the individual needs of the manufacturers. Assisting companies in the automotive industry gives the community an opportunity to “upskill” our labor force, as was described in Business Facilities’ Economic Development Deal of the Year cover story in our Jan/Feb issue, which named Kentucky’s automotive partnership with Ford Motor Company the Gold Award winner.

This rural community has outstanding highway access on I-64 just 25 miles west of Louisville’s city center. Recent investment in infrastructure projects has allowed Harrison County to expand the sewer and water capacities available and has brought improved roadways to better accommodate business development. The Economic Development Corporation is marketing a Business Park that is owned by the Chamber of Commerce and is certified Shovel Ready by the State of Indiana. The Harrison Rural Electric Cooperative supplies electricity to the industrial area and provides outstanding dependability with two substations within a mile of the Business Park. Sites have been considered by several suppliers to Toyota Motor Corporation, which has assembly plants 90 miles west in Princeton, IN and 90 miles east in Georgetown, KY.

The property has attracted Howard Packaging; a California based plastic injection molding company that makes bottles for Lucas Oil Products, which established a production facility and distribution center in Corydon in 2002. Lucas Oil has grown considerably since locating here and produces about 80% of its world-wide oil and fuel additives at the Corydon facility. The Business Park still has 60 acres remaining that is Shovel Ready and nearby parcels can also be developed for additional expansion.

Because of its ideal location Harrison County has been one of the fastest growing counties in Indiana over the past 30 years. The aggressive approach to creating jobs has helped to improve the overall standard of living for the existing residents, has kept property tax rates among the lowest in the state and the population of the county continues to grow even during challenging economic times.

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