Biotechs making a splash in Triad.

• Position: Regional Focus

The Piedmont Triad Partnership doesn't want to take a back seat to Charlotte and the Research Triangle. The Piedmont Triad has long been known as the manufacturing center of North Carolina, while its two neighbors served as the state's financial and high-tech centers.

Now the Triad, mostly due to painstaking planning and long-needed cooperation among governmental units and agencies, stands ready to compete on all economic development fronts. And officials in the partnership make a point of saying that they believe development will spread across the entire region, rather than concentrate in the largest cities.

The Triad's history as a manufacturing base stretches back to the late 1700s, when its network of rivers and streams first began to power mills to grind grains. Those gave way soon enough to the textile mills, which thrived. The region's hardwood forests attracted furniture craftsmen, and that industry also took off, though machines later did most of the work.

By the late 20th century, the Triad was home to such textile and apparel giants as Burlington Industries, VF, Guilford Mills and Cone Mills; furniture makers such as LifeStyle Furnishings International and Klaussner Furniture Industries; and cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings. High Point was home twice a year to the International Home Furnishings Market. The state's third- and fourth-largest banks, Wachovia and BB&T, called Winston-Salem home. According to a 2001 study by the state Employment Security Commission, more than 26% of the Triad work force was employed in manufacturing, compared to 15.5% in the Triangle and 14% in Charlotte.

But by the end of 2001, cracks were evident in the Triad's manufacturing base. Statewide, textile employment was down 10.8%, with 15,000 jobs lost in one year. Apparel employment declined 9.7%, or 5,000 jobs. Furniture employment dropped 8%, with 5,000 more jobs gone. It hit the Triad region hard: Unemployment increased from 3% in November 2000 to 5.3% in November 2001.

There was even more bad news. The September 2001 merger of Wachovia and Charlotte-based First Union, with the new company taking Wachovia's name but moving its headquarters to Charlotte, will cost Winston-Salem prestige and nearly 1,000 more jobs during the next two years. And High Point's furniture market, a twice-a-year event that pumps $335 million a year into the region, faces a threat from a proposed furniture market in Las Vegas. Even the biggest development on the horizon, the proposed $300 million Federal Express hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport, has generated court challenges.

If it all sounds hopeless, like the region is doomed to minor-league status between two upscale neighbors, then you don't know the Triad.

Because leaders in the Piedmont Triad have a plan. They're reinventing the region as an entrepreneurial hotbed, targeting biotechnology as the anchor to their strategy. They've pledged to put regional jealousies behind to work for the best interest of the partnership. And they're determined not to defer to Charlotte or the Triangle as they reshape their region to accommodate the high-tech industries they want.

It's already happening. The region is home to at least 13 biotechs. And Canada-based BIOTECH Magazine, in its June/July 2001 issue in which it calls North Carolina one of the top five sites for commercial biotechnology in the United States, put everyone on notice that there's life outside the Triangle. "There is a new kid on the block -- a younger sibling that has put down roots about a two-hour drive to the west, in an area known as the Piedmont Triad. Although still in its infancy, the Triad is showing some real promise as an up-and-coming biotech region of the future, and some people -- entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and executives of foreign firms seeking to expand to the U.S. -- are beginning to take...