Big Week for the NC Research Campus

It’s been a great week for the NCRC. First, the announcement was made Tuesday that General Mills will be opening a lab on the campus. Then, on Wednesday, we learned that the Immune Tolerance Institute will be working here as well. They will establish the Center for Critical Path Research in Immunology.

It seems that, perhaps, we might be coming out of the recession and momentum is picking up. Many of of the universities have made hires recently, and the DHMRI has clients using their facilities from up and down the eastern seaboard. Science is really starting to flourish in Kannapolis.

There has been some great reporting on both of these announcements. For more, you can check out WBTV’s story about General Mills or this Salisbury Post piece or this one about the Immune Tolerance Institute.

The Vision of the NCRC and a Call for Patience

I have been a native of the Charlotte region for most of my 40-something years.  During this time I have watched with interest the development (and oftentimes redevelopment) of uptown Charlotte. Or downtown. Or Center City.

This weekend, while reading an article about the residential development in downtown Charlotte, I was struck that while only 8 of the 20 announced developments since the mid-2000s have been built, that downtown economic developers and promoters would have likely been thrilled by the knowledge in 1999 that, by 2010, there would be 8 new significant downtown residential developments.  It’s easy to look back now and focus on the 12 projects that didn’t happen (yet) and lose sight of the 8 that did happen and how they helped transform Charlotte’s urban core.

The parallels to the development landscape in downtown Charlotte and some of the recent talk about the slowdown of development on the North Carolina Research Campus are amazingly close. Can you imagine how excited in July 2003 we in Kannapolis and Cabarrus County would have been to know that by 2009 we would be witness to the removal of more than 6 million square feet of rapidly decaying and obsolete textile manufacturing space (with no public funds expended to do it); the construction of three huge buildings including a one of a kind, state-of-the-art laboratory facility and space to support eight public and private universities doing groundbreaking life science research; nearly $300 million in private investment; and more than 200 people in the biotech industry working in downtown Kannapolis?

The Great Recession has changed our real estate market and it has impacted development projects across the country, from downtown Charlotte to New York City’s World Trade Center site to yes, Kannapolis and the North Carolina Research Campus.

What hasn’t changed in Kannapolis is the vision. Over the past several years we have spent a lot of time talking about buildings, and rightfully so. But we’re moving into a phase of the maturity of the Campus where the science is starting to take flight. Scientific papers are being published. Scientists are being recruited on a daily basis.  Real scientific discoveries are starting to develop and emerge.  This growth in the business of the Campus (more so than the development of the Campus) is what will sustain the project over time.  It is the science and the discoveries that will lead to more buildings, more private investment and more jobs.  The transformation of our local economy is indeed occurring – just not in the five years we had originally hoped.

Even if we never witnessed another brick being laid on the North Carolina Research Campus, we as a community and a region are incredibly fortunate to have seen what has occurred to date.  We are already incredibly far ahead of the game.

The satisfying part of all this is that the North Carolina Research Campus is still in its infancy and there are no plans to stop (or even slow) its continued development once our national and global economy recovers.  There will certainly be plenty more bricks to be laid on the Campus and lots more jobs to be created; but more importantly, there will be real scientific breakthroughs in the areas of nutrition, food productivity and disease research.  We must remain patient and do our part to continue to support this great vision.

NC A&T Lecture Series Launches Tonight

Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna

NC A&T kicks off a month of free lectures on the NC Research Campus this evening with a talk from Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna, Director of the Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies. His talk will provide an overview of the Center’s role on the NCRC and also include information on technologies for enhancing the safety of and value of peanuts in North Carolina.*

The month continues with four other free lectures with topics ranging from what to eat to help avoid cancer risks to food safety to sustainable agriculture.

The talks begin at 7 p.m. each Tuesday in March and are held at the Core Lab. For more information, check out the program flyer here.

*On a personal note this sounds really cool to me, in addition to tobacco, my grandfather grew peanuts on his farm in Martin County. I miss getting the burlap bags of peanuts each year at Thanksgiving.

North Carolina JOBS Commission

Lt. Governor Walter Dalton was in Kannapolis on Friday at the N.C. Research Campus. He is the chair of the JOBS Commission (“Joining Our Businesses and Schools”), which is a group formed by the N.C. General Assembly to make recommendations on how to better link public education and the needs of the businesses in the state. The meeting included panels of business leaders and education leaders. Some of the comments that were made echoed the presentations made at the recent Kannapolis City Council retreat.

Kenny McDonald, VP of Economic Development Services with the Charlotte Regional Partnership, pointed out three key talent challenges that we face as a region:

• Creating places that allow us to attract talent from U.S. and abroad. At the City Council retreat, we discussed the importance of human capital recruitment, and that establishing a strong quality of life and sense of place are critical to making Kannapolis attractive to talented workers.
• Preparing educated individuals and an entrepreneurial culture. Another topic at the City Council retreat was economic development, and the need for Kannapolis to foster an entrepreneurial culture and to develop and attract a well-educated workforce – these are the foundations of growing a strong economic base.
• Preparing specialists capable of solving multi-disciplinary problems. The future workforce needs a wide range of skills and a deep knowledge base. Increasingly, jobs and the problems we face are multi-disciplinary – meaning that you may need different types of degrees or at least an understanding of different fields to be able to tackle work and business challenges. Locally, the N.C. Research Campus is designed to achieve the multi-disciplinary work and collaboration needed for the future. For example, the MURDOCK study being conducted by Duke University, brings together experts with experience in fields such as radiology, cardiology, proteomics, and clinical research.

Scott Lampe, CFO of Hendrick Motorsports, echoed McDonald’s comments and noted that at his company, while they have a variety of jobs from retail operations to licensing to performance racing, what makes their company successful is the process of creating leaders and entrepreneurs. As a community, that should also be Kannapolis’ goal – for us to work together collectively to make this a place that can grow and attract leaders and entrepreneurs. Those are the types of people who create jobs, increase local wealth, and give back to our community.

John Cox, CEO of the Cabarrus Regional Chamber and Cabarrus Economic Development, used the acronym TINKER when it comes to workforce development needs – Think, Innovation, Nurture, Knowledge, Entrepreneurship, and Research. As our future workforce, our kids need to develop or experience all of that through their school years.

As a city government, we have limited direct influence on our educational systems. (Did you know there are 3 school districts in Kannapolis?) However, it is important for us as community leaders to support and encourage the advancement of education and workforce development in the Kannapolis area – it is the essential ingredient to our future prosperity.

Lt. Governor holding JOBS meeting in Kannapolis

Lt. Governor Walton Dalton will be in Kannapolis hosting a regional forum centered around linking educational programs and businesses on December 11. The event, which will take place at the Core Lab, is part of the JOBS Commission.

According to a press release, this initiative plans to:

The Commission aims to create themed schools that match the economic development needs in a community.  Many of these will likely match with the workforce needs for the emerging, technology-based economy, including schools focused on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).  Schools could also focus on workforce shortage areas like nursing and teaching.

The meeting for our region will be December 11th, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m., at the David H. Murdock Core Laboratory Events Room on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. The meeting is open to the public and will include a general discussion. One of the areas that the JOBS Commission will study is the establishment of early college high schools that are integrated to the needs of the local economy.

If you are interested in attending the JOBS Commission regional meeting to hear more and to offer your ideas to the lieutenant governor, please e-mail Jamie Almond or call her at 919.733.7350.

An article in the October issue of North Carolina Magazine gives more background on the commission.