Local business leaders explore biotech efforts
10/15/2005
THE HERALD-DISPATCH
Huntington, West Virginia
Saturday, October 15, 2005
By Nicole Young
The Herald-Dispatch
Huntington – Looking to feed off the strengths of both Marshall University and the Tri-State’s health care system, local business leaders and members of the Huntington Area Development Council visited Maryland to explore possible future biotechnology efforts.
Comparing Cabell County to Montgomery County, MD, HADCO developers visited a business incubator that specializes in biotechnology, said David Graley, HADCO chairman and president of BankOne.
“This is one step in understanding how to gather our local strengths in those areas of science, medicine and technology,” he said. “Our strengths locally are MU and health care and how we build around those strengths and create clusters of new economy jobs and technology jobs to feed off each other.”
Second only to Silicon Valley, Montgomery County has one of the largest biotech clusters in the United States. Graley said the county expects in the next decade there will be 50,000 people employed just in biotech jobs.
“They have 800,000 people in the area,” he said. “But if you look at the Huntington and Charleston metropolitan areas…while the scales may baffle you, it’s amazing to know its still doable here.”
The Maryland Technology Development Center, the technology incubator located in Montgomery County, recently completed a second incubator in Silver Springs, MD. That, Graley said, is something HADCO is modeling their technology incubator after.
The HADCO technology incubator, which will be called the Velocity Center, will be located in KineticPark in Huntington. Like KineticPark, the Maryland incubator began with a vacant site, said HADCO Executive Director Jerry McDonald.
“They just began putting the pieces together,” McDonald said.
HADCO was instrumental in the formulation of the West Virginia Biotech Alliance and currently is involved with the Huntington Municipal Development Authority in forming the technology section in KineticPark.
“The ultimate goal is a generation of new economy jobs in our area,” Graley said. “We want to keep young people here and if they leave, we want to be able to bring them back.
