On the road to innovation: the Triangle has an entrepreneurial culture unlike anywhere else.

• Author: Doss, Monica P.
• Position: Council for Entrepreneurial Development

Monica P. Doss is the president of Research Triangle Park-based Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the nation's oldest and largest entrepreneurial organization with more than 3,500 members representing 1,000 entrepreneurial companies, financiers and professional firms. In 2004, CED celebrates 20 years of igniting entrepreneurial success and providing educational, mentoring and capital-formation resources to stimulate the creation of high-impact companies in the greater Research Triangle region.

From the textile, manufacturing and agricultural captains of industry such as James B. Duke, the Broyhills and J. Spencer Love in the early 1900s, to the banking, insurance and services barons like Hugh McColl, Paul Fulton and Paul Rizzo who started in the 1950s, North Carolina has long enjoyed a rich history of corporate chiefs. In the 1980s, the next generation, including Jim Goodnight, Jim Goodmon, Darlene Johns and Charles Sanders, who are still at the top of their game, came of age and provided the spark for one of the world's strongest innovation-based economies.

In the early 1980s, Bob Gress, then chairman of the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, formed a task force to explore why the Triangle lagged in new-company formation, despite its strong research institutions, business schools and robust economy. Public leaders were asking themselves similar questions, and over the next few years each group found their answers, creating visionary institutions--the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, MCNC and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center--that fueled new economic growth.

These institutions underpinned a vibrant network among academic and corporate researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and service professionals, and they increased the amount of capital available to young North Carolina companies. The community grew rapidly in its first decade, marked by the...