Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 21, 1995 TAG: 9502210075
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Tech has launched a ``virtual incubator'' program that would provide services and advice to small, high-tech businesses.
The Center for Innovative Technology, Tech and the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg have pooled almost $130,000 to create the Business/Technology Center, which will use experts from a variety of private, public and academic fields to help businesses.
It aims to offer assistance on marketing, financing, legal support, personnel management and other activities. Herb Cork, director of the Small Business Institute at Tech, will head the program.
``We have a very broad agenda,'' Cork said. Examples of business problems that it might address could range from how to network computers to putting together an employee handbook.
But, unlike traditional business incubators, the Tech model will not house its member companies physically. It will not cater to businesses located in one building or provide low-rent sites for starting up. Rather, services will be provided to companies at their existing locations.
``The one thing we don't want to do is build an elaborate infrastructure,'' Cork said. ``Small businesses cannot afford to get mixed up in infrastructure.''
Cork said the majority of businesses he is working with are in Tech's Corporate Research Center, but he envisions a program that could help companies throughout Southwest Virginia. About 30 companies have expressed an interest in receiving services; about a third of those are located outside the research center, he said.
``We've started out close to home,'' he said. But ``I don't want this to get the spin that it's an on-campus activity. It's not.''
Cork said one of his main priorities now is recruiting experts from various fields to help businesses.
While he said confidentiality agreements precluded him from identifying the interested businesses, their fields include ceramic materials, fiber optics and power electronics. The focus on high-tech companies, most of which will employ fewer than 50 people, is designed to help those businesses that ``provide the greatest economic-development leverage to the local community,'' said Joe Meredith, director of the research center.
The CIT, through one of four grants awarded in January for entrepreneur-assistance programs, has provided $50,000 for the program, augmented by $69,500 from three university sources and $9,000 total from the two towns.
For more information, contact Cork at 231-2730 or e-mail him at corkvtml.cc.vt.edu.
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