ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070032
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
A proposal to form a private economic development agency to help foster growth of technology-based businesses in Western Virginia drew the attention of government, industry and academic leaders Wednesday.
Ray Pelletier, executive director of a similar, existing agency in Northern Virginia - the Northern Virginia Technology Council - said the mission of his own 375-member group is to promote the development, growth and recognition of technology businesses. He spoke at a meeting of about 40 people at New River Community College.
Among other things, his agency works to create an environment in which start-up businesses can grow and flourish, Pelletier said. But the technology council envisioned to serve the localities around the Roanoke and New River valleys could do whatever its member companies need it to do, he said.
The Western Virginia agency, to be called the New Century Technology Council, was proposed last year as one of the goals of the New Century Council, a regional private planning organization serving nine counties and five cities in the New River and Roanoke valleys and Alleghany Highlands.
Ed Heurtematte, a businessman who helped develop the proposal for the new agency, said its goals would include helping attract and foster the growth of technology-based businesses, providing a forum for the technology business community on critical issues and promoting technology education.
Robert Templin Jr., president of Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, said the center is working with four start-up technology councils in the state in Lynchburg, Tidewater, Richmond and Winchester. The CIT, a state economic development agency, also has offered a $10,000 matching grant to help the New River Technology Council get under way.
Templin called the council "a seed of opportunity for a region with tremendous potential."
William Stephenson, dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, pledged support and donated $1,000 out of his own pocket to the effort to get the council up and running. Perhaps, Tech could make a greater effort to determine how it can help companies in the region, and the university also could benefit from the support of the business community, he said.
"This is exactly what this region needs to do, take advantage of all the technical resources we do have," said Dale Lewis, whose British-owned company, BBA Friction Inc., makes brake pads for Ford and Chrysler vehicles at a plant in Dublin.
Howard Kanter, a manager with Hoescht Celanese Corp.'s acetate plant in at Narrows, agreed. Nowadays, if a company is to retain or grow its work force, it needs to look for opportunities to generate more sales or create new businesses, Kanter said. Hoescht, itself, may have some opportunities to use its technology to create new types of business, he said.
In Northern Virginia, 1,300 technology companies provide 16 percent of all jobs and $5 billion in annual direct payroll, Pelletier said.
Besides promoting economic development, one critical function of the agency is to get representatives of various technology companies together to talk with each other, Pelletier said. "When you bring businesses together, more businesses are spawned," he said.
His agency also works as an advocate for its members before government on such issues as taxes and regulation, Pelletier said. Among the group's initiatives before the General Assembly this year, he said, are a push for business, professional and occupational license tax reform and legislation allowing the establishment of "technology zones" in which communities could give technology companies tax and regulatory relief.
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