ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605040010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN SORENSEN
ECONOMIC development efforts, I've heard it said, focus too much on recruitment - that is, on getting footloose industries to move to your town - when most jobs are, in fact, homegrown.
A corollary of this point is that a community is better off trying to nurture entrepreneurs - some of whom may eventually hire people, pay them good money, and even build headquarters in the region - than becoming an economy of other people's shifting branch offices and operations.
The point can be overstated. You also need to recruit businesses, and not turn away branch offices. Still, it seems to me the above observations are not only correct. They are crucial.
A couple of recent business developments reinforce the point.
One involves Innotech, out on Airport Road in Roanoke. Earlier this year, Innotech raised $30 million through a first public stock offering. That doesn't happen every day in Roanoke.
Ronald Blum, who started the company, was a founding partner in Drs. Blum, Newman, Blackstock and Associates, the well-known optical firm. He had the vision to recognize that an independent eyewear business would stand a better chance competing against the giant optical chains if it could make prescription multifocal lenses quickly in-house, rather than having to send the work to a laboratory.
Typically, lens-making equipment requires extensive space, must be operated by highly skilled technicians, and is messy and noisy. In 1988, Blum began tinkering with ideas for making the process simpler and more compact.
An early version of his contraption looked like wooden boxes with light bulbs. But he kept at it, learning more from what didn't work than from what did. He attracted a top-flight chemist to help, and sold the first system in 1993.
Innotech has stayed in debt until this year. But last month its executives were predicting its work force of nearly 170 will grow to 1,300 within five years - about 550 of it in the Roanoke Valley. That may or may not be optimistic. It certainly is interesting.
The other little development I noticed came in the mail last week on a press release.
"R. Frazier Inc., an international computer, electronics and telecommunications recycling company based in Salem, has opened an office in Austin, Texas," said the notice.
An eight-year-old Salem company is opening operations in Austin?
Well, of course. It's Frazier's third U.S. office. It has operations, too, in the United Kingdom, France, China and Costa Rica.
Randy Frazier, who started the outfit, is a high-tech junk man, and an environmentally benign one at that. His company takes used or obsolete computer and electronics equipment in high volume from big companies, refurbishes it, then resells it to technology-hungry countries in the developing world.
It's a much better, and more profitable, destination for the stuff than landfills or salvage businesses.
Like Blum, Frazier saw a need, and figured a way to fill it. Both men had technical educations, but brought something more than that background to their aspirations.
Does our region want to spawn more Blums and Fraziers, as it once did the entrepreneur John Hancock?
To do so, we'll need more things - like venture capital, business incubators, and the help of higher-education institutions, especially Virginia Tech.
But we'll also need particular attitudes. We'll have to get better accustomed to risk and failure, which most start-up businesses experience. We'll need to graduate from our schools young people who can think for themselves, work in teams, solve problems in new ways, and take chances.
We better get busy.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB