Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 14, 1995 TAG: 9509140057
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
It was sometime in the 1970s when the Lacy Commission was fulfilling its two-year legislative mandate to find ideas for improving the economy of Southwest Virginia, he said after the dedication of Edwards Hall. The center emerged as one of those ideas.
Edwards was president of New River Community College from 1976 to 1988, and is now executive vice president for administration at George Mason University - a post that includes overseeing special projects on the expanding GMU campus in Northern Virginia.
This newest building at NRCC exceeded Edwards' own expectations, he said, because of new technologies developed since it was conceived.
"Your challenge is to be flexible and creative as much as you can be" in using the center, he told a college staff member. "Have fun with it."
The new center houses electronic classrooms, communications facilities that reach literally around the world, a computer laboratory, incubator office space for new businesses, and space for training or re-training employees of existing, expanding or new industries.
The dedication program was held in the new training area, which also housed displays that are part of this week's New River Valley Industry Appreciation program.
"This is kind of a symbol of the partnerships that it takes to make economic development come about," said Linwood Holton, former Virginia governor and former president of Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology.
Holton, the main speaker Wednesday, listed examples of partnerships between educational institutions and entrepreneurs that have ended up producing jobs throughout the state. Investment in higher education has a direct payoff in jobs for Virginia, he said.
Edwards would later echo that sentiment and express concern about how that investment had dwindled in recent years. If the emphasis is not kept up, he said, "all that investment's going to go down the tubes."
One of Holton's examples involved a form of plastic matting that grew out of a scientific investigation at Virginia Tech. Researchers found that putting a layer of it under the base material for highways could help avoid the road potholes that require so much reconstruction, saving as much as $35,000 per mile. "And that's being tested down in Bedford County today," he said.
"It's a thrill to think about what all this can be," he said. "This room will make more jobs than you can shake a stick at ... and that's what it's all about."
The center almost did not come about, recalled Ed Barnes, the college's current president. "I've never really known whether this project was cursed or blessed."
Its funding originally was included among 83 projects to be paid for with profits from the state lottery. It was 83rd on that list. Lottery profits, however, ended up going elsewhere. In 1992, state voters passed a general obligation bond issue for educational facilities and supporters worked to have the center included. Legislators representing the New River Valley kept the project active, Barnes said. Now the building is being touted as a drawing card for new industry to the New River Valley.
by CNB