THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996 TAG: 9611050282
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: 69 lines
Perquimans County doesn't lack for friends with money, leaders in this county seat learned Monday.
A new benefactor has chipped in $200,000 to start a ``business incubator'' in the area.
The North Carolina Technological Development Authority Inc., a partly public and partly private economic promotion agency in Raleigh's Research Triangle, decided to spend the money to establish a small-business infrastructure for emerging manufacturing and technology businesses, officials said.
Three other counties, linked with Perquimans by geography and heritage, will share in the designed benefits.
``The proposed 10,000 square-foot business incubator, located in Hertford, will serve the counties of Perquimans, Chowan, Pasquotank and Gates . . . for start-up and expansion of small industries,'' said Peggy Brotherton, a spokeswoman for the authority.
When the new agency gets started, it will be the third major economic growth facility to locate in Hertford in recent years.
The well-established Albemarle Commission, through many ups and downs, has provided extensive economic services for 10 Albemarle counties for more than a decade.
Albemarle Commission meeting rooms are often used by the Northeast Economic Partnership, which has been located in Hertford since the General Assembly started the 16-county agency two years ago with an annual operating budget of $1.2 million.
The new Perquimans County business incubator will be managed by a 17-member board of directors, officials of the N.C. Technological Development Authority said. The directors include many leading businessmen and women in North Carolina as well as local legislators.
``I foresee the Perquimans County business incubator as an investment in the growth and development of the community,'' said state Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, who helped get the authority started in the Research Triangle.
The incubator will be managed by the Perquimans 2020 Vision Coalition, a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1992.
``We recognize small businesses as strong and viable contributors to our community,'' said Mayor Fred Yates of nearby Winfall. Yates is chairman of the Perquimans 2020 Vision Coalition.
``I envision the Hertford-Perquimans County business incubator as an effective means to spur our regional economic growth,'' Yates said.
Another member of the board of directors of the business incubator is state Rep. Howard Hunter Jr., D-Murfreesboro.
Hunter and Yates will serve on the board with many influential business and professional leaders, including Commerce Secretary S. Davis Phillips, and Jane Smith Patterson, Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.'s adviser for policy, budget and technology.
``It will be important to me to know that we are doing something that will help our own communities,'' Hunter said.
Hunter said the new incubator should translate economic innovation from university think tanks and Research Triangle laboratories into hands-on business for start-up companies in Northeastern North Carolina.
Jimmy Dixon, chairman of the Hertford-based Northeastern Economic Partnership, said he welcomed the arrival of the new agency in Perquimans County.
``The Technological Development Authority has kept us posted on what they're doing,'' Dixon said, ``and we're all heading in the same direction.
``We're all creating jobs by stimulating the commercialization of technology developed in research labs,'' Dixon said.
The Northeast Partnership plans to move to Edenton, on U.S. 17 in adjacent Chowan County, this winter, Dixon said. Edenton is refurbishing a building that will provide more space than the Partnership's current quarters over a Centura Bank office in Hertford. by CNB