ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610180021
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
"Where's Ted?" the cell phone executives kept asking. "Where's Ted?"
People repeating the seemingly insignificant question were looking for Virginia Tech faculty researcher Ted Rappaport at the Cellular Telephone Industry Association annual conference in Dallas last March. He was there, but it seemed to one observer that many were trying to pin down his whereabouts.
It was a moment that Alleghany Highlands economic developer Glynn Loope wished anyone concerned about Virginia economy, and Virginia Tech's role in making it stronger, could have seen.
Loope was seated at a booth with economic developers spreading information about business opportunities in the region.
Rappaport, who directs Tech's Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group, a research and graduate teaching program, went along.
The developers pined for representatives of companies they might recruit to Virginia, and "Ted Rappaport was a drawing card to us," Loope said. "This is an example of how the university was obviously playing a very direct role in our attractiveness to the wireless communication industry."
The callers knew Rappaport's reputation as a wireless whiz kid - he is 36 - and wanted to bend his ear. They were from such companies as Motorola Inc. of Schaumburg, Ill.; Nokia Corp. of Helsinki, Finland; and Ericsson Telephone Co. of Stockholm, Sweden. The latter has a cell-phone plant in Forest; all the companies are cell-phone industry leaders.
Loope came back with some leads he attributes in part to Rappaport's presence. He is still developing them and hasn't yet made any announcements. But the event has symbolic importance, he said.
Other economic developers agree that, despite struggling at times to make the right contacts at Tech, the university's help is top-notch.
Tech faculty members accept invitations to explain to prospective employers the services available at the university, said Beth Doughty, who directs the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership.
"If you can find them, they will do it. The question is finding the right people," Doughty said. Once the connection is made, the affiliation with the university, embodied in a faculty member at the negotiating table, "always makes us look good."
For local economic developers, one of the biggest bugaboos is the diversity of phone lines and offices at Virginia Tech. No office exists to help the developers get help for companies, so developers struggle to connect with the expert they need.
Some chalk up the lack of such an office to disorganization, others to a fortress-like attitude, even though Virginia Tech was established to devote at least a third of its efforts to public service.
The university is "too big to get your arms around" said Tim Gubala, chief economic developer for Roanoke County.
It's "looked at as having barbed wire around it and no way to get to that expertise," said Lisa Ison, who manages the Roanoke business incubator and was a Montgomery County economic developer.
The apparent communication breakdown may stem from problems on both ends, however. Some of these same developers who admit to being in the dark about all Tech could offer their clients and the communities the developers represent have not dug for the answers, either.
Jerry Burgess, Botetourt County's administrator and top developer, drew a blank when asked to suggest new ways Tech could make an economic contribution. "I don't know everything they do now," Burgess said.
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