The Triad: new focus is on tech, biotech.

• Author: Edgar, Robin A.
• Position: Regional Focus: SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION - Advertisement

Change doesn't have to be unsettling. The Piedmont Triad Partnership--North Carolina's most manufacturing-intensive region--is adjusting to downturns in its traditional industries by fertilizing a crop of biotechnology-and technology-based businesses with a healthy dose of research and development. Realizing that traditional manufacturing [of textiles tobacco and furniture] is in decline is the major factor in reinventing our future, with hopes that the new targets will stimulate growth. says Sonny Wilburn president of the Alamance County Area Chamber of Commerce.

But there's more at work here than the realization that the old ways are going away. Piedmont Triad leaders believe the time is right for growth in biotech, an industry that already employs more than 191,000 nationally supported annually by $15 billion in venture capital. And they have been able to sell the notion to the 12-county region, which has a population of 1.5 million. "Triad elected and public officials and universities have shown tremendous leadership," says Gwyn F. Riddick, director of the Piedmont Triad office of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Bob Leak Jr., president of Winston-Salem Business, one of the job-hunting organizations in the Piedmont Triad, says the key to succeeding in the transition is to find the right niche. "At one time, over 25% of the region's work force was affiliated with manufacturing. Today it is less than 20%. Research has become an integral part of the region's growth. With the expansion of the Piedmont Triad Research Park, biotechnology, medical-technology and information-technology research are beginning to grow."

The economic potential of the commercialization of university research stimulated the expansion of Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem. The park, four buildings on about 15 acres, was started a decade ago in a former tobacco-company research building, which was renovated for Wake Forest University's School of Medicine and Winston-Salem State University. "In assembling the land mass for the expanded research park, we received tremendous cooperation from landowners. Existing businesses are willing to sell their land and relocate. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco has been very supportive and donated two tracts of land [about 11 acres] to the effort," says Mark Wright, a spokesman for Wake Forest University Health Sciences.

Others point to another Triad advantage--the presence of major research universities. "This...