Developer can build on firm foundation in RTP.

• Author: Roush, Chris
• Position: People - Research Triangle Park

Rick Weddle might seem to have it better than most economic developers easing into their jobs. He joined Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina July 19 as president and CEO, inheriting what he calls economic development's best-known brand.

While he might be the envy of his peers, Weddle, 53, is keeping close watch on competitors such as high-tech communities in Boston and the Washington, D.C., suburbs. It's his job to make sure the 7,000-acre Research Triangle Park outpaces them and others when it comes to attracting business. The foundation is the owner and developer of RTP, where more than 70 companies have located in the last 25 years. About 1,100 acres are left to be developed.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The foundation started in 1956 to develop a research center near the region's three major universities--N.C. State, UNC Chapel Hill and Duke. RTP's first tenant was the nonprofit Research Triangle Institute, which today employs more than 2,300. The park is home to more than 100 research organizations and operations of companies such as Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM and London-based GlaxoSmithKline.

He came to the foundation from Phoenix, where he spent seven years as president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. He isn't new to North Carolina. His first stop here--and his first shot at running an economic-development operation--was in 1987, when he became president of Winston-Salem Business, a nonprofit that recruits businesses to Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. "One of the things that I liked was the way business and government worked together in North Carolina to get things done. That's not true everywhere. In some places it's far more adversarial."

The McAlester, Okla., native earned a bachelor's in political science from the University of Oklahoma in 1974 and started as a city...