THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 20, 1994 TAG: 9409200292
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Lunch was late. The overhead projections were less than inspirational, and the speakers droned on past their allotted time.
Nevertheless, the message Monday to the business community from organizers of a state-sponsored technology transfer seminar was upbeat: Hampton Roads companies can profit, and handsomely, from high-tech if they know how to work the federal system.
``It (Hampton Roads) is not going to be Silicon Valley. It is going to be a manufacturing/economics valley,'' said one of the seminar presenters, Joseph S. Heyman, NASA Langley Research Center deputy director for technology applications.
The lunchtime talkfest was sponsored by Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology, a state agency in Fairfax County charged with promoting technology commercialization. About 70 attendees from area industry, state agencies, colleges and universities, and federal facilities gathered at a Holiday Inn to listen as five speakers described how companies, with the help of government, are taking ideas from laboratories into the marketplace.
Government enthusiasm for tech transfer is a relatively recent development. During the Cold War, sharing technology secrets was frowned on as a possible breach of security. These days, technology sharing is seen as essential to national economic security.
Federal agencies are only too eager to tout their in-house expertise, especially as they try to dodge possible cuts in budgets and complements.
Last October, for example, NASA Langley presented its first Technology Opportunities Showcase, a high-tech fair that touted the practical benefits of the Hampton laboratory's aerospace research. On display were gadgets and processes in various stages of commercialization.
Some of the Monday attendees, while agreeing Hampton Roads has high-tech potential, said the area still relies too heavily on the government for its technology prosperity.
``Traditional technology here has been based on the government, like NASA Langley and CEBAF (the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility in Newport News),'' said Peter Van Bergen, a patent lawyer practicing in Williamsburg. ``The shipyards are also fueled by the government. I don't think there's the core yet of private industry, like the Research Triangle in North Carolina or Route 128 in Boston.''
One visitor was openly skeptical about federal ability to work closely with companies. David H. Mullins, chief executive officer of aerospace engineering firm Dynamic Engineering Inc. in Newport News, said he wasn't impressed by the plethora of would-be national tech transfer programs cited by the speakers.
Mullins would like the government to help his $15 million, 200-person company compete internationally, but so far has gotten nowhere in his efforts.
``I'm going to be blunt about it: So far it's all talk,'' Mullins said. ``I can't find the help, technological or financial. When you start getting specific, financial help evaporates.''
Although he's discouraged, Mullins insists he won't give up. He's convinced that if local businesses learn how to commercialize their defense efforts, Hampton Roads could kick its chronic reliance on government contracts.
``There are phenomenal assets in this part of Virginia,'' he said. ``If we can get that together, we can build a technology base second to none.'' by CNB