
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 25, 1994                   TAG: 9407250045
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE CIT

MANY VIRGINIA lawmakers - and many non-lawmaking Virginians, for that matter - still aren't sure what the state's 10-year-old Center for Innovative Technology does. In recent years, however, they seem generally to have stopped grousing that the Northern Virginia facility, created by the General Assembly at the urging of former Democratic Gov. Charles Robb, is a multimillion-dollar boondoggle.

Possibly a key reason for the change in attitude is the bipartisan respect legislators retain for former Republican Gov. Linwood Holton.

Holton was enlisted to head the nonprofit CIT in 1988, at a time when it had scant credibility with lawmakers, some of whom were ready to jerk state funding from it.

The quasi-government center, whose mission was more or less to forge ties between Virginia universities doing high-tech research and industries interested in using or marketing high-tech applications, had been plagued with cost-overruns. Its credibility also was suffering from turnover at the top, with three previous presidents having left almost as soon as they came on board.

Now Holton also is leaving the CIT, to return to private law practice. He will be succeeded in September by Dr. Robert G. Templin Jr., now president of Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton and a member of the CIT board of directors.

Holton had pledged in '88 to give five years of his leadership to the CIT; he gave it almost six. In those six years, he also gave it badly needed stability and a better sense of direction. The CIT still has problems, and is not a favorite yet of many lawmakers. But, especially with the help of Virginia Tech, it is developing a track record with demonstrable successes.

Virginians owe thanks to Holton, the former Roanoker, for (another) well-done job in the public's service.

by CNB