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Delaware Tech Park's No. 1(The News Journal)By GARY HUBER The News Journal It used to be farmland, and in a sense, it still is. Delaware Technology Park, on 40 acres leased from the University of Delaware, next to the campus in Newark, is the place where many of Delaware's high-tech companies have planted their seeds. If you want to talk about tech in the First State, this is the place. Forty-nine companies and organizations, which employ more than 600 people, call this five-building complex of offices and laboratories home. With tenants including the Delaware Biotechnology Institute and the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology, it is the hub of the state's biotech industry. The tenants fall into one of three areas - biotechnology, information technology and advanced materials research. The park offers tenants access to scientific equipment, networking and opportunities to meet venture capitalists looking to invest. This kind of networking is important to a startup company, said Myron Sasser, a local high-tech entrepreneur. "If you're isolated in a little building somewhere, you're out of luck," Sasser said. Delaware Biotechnology Institute, a part of the University of Delaware, started in 1999 as a center of excellence in life science and biotechnology research. Its specialties include research into avian diseases that affect the state's poultry industry and research in molecular plant biology. DBI's partners include Delaware State University, Delaware Technical & Community College, Wesley College, Christiana Care health system and the Nemours Foundation's Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. The park, a partnership between the state, the University of Delaware and industry, got some important national recognition earlier this month, when the Association of University Research Parks named it outstanding research/science park of the year. The award was presented Nov. 3 at a ceremony at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. That put it in some lofty company. Previous award winners include Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, the granddaddy of research parks. "To be in that league is kind of mind-boggling," said Mike Bowman, the park's chairman and president. "The world has found out about us." Bowman, 64, a chemical engineer by training, is no stranger to high-tech. He ran DuPont Co.'s Advanced Materials Systems business, which was the first tenant when the park opened its first building in 1993. Bowman was named the chairman of the park's board of directors in 1992. He became president in 1998. The park has grown to 250,000 square feet of laboratory and office space. Tenants have received $300 million in federal research dollars since the park opened. Bowman estimates the park's economic impact at between $70 million and $80 million a year. Employment is up by 100 workers in the past 18 months, he said. The park's creation was one of the recommendations of the High-Technology Task Force Gov. Mike Castle convened in 1986 to come up with ways of adding high-tech jobs to the state. Delaware wanted to create a high-tech hub like those in Silicon Valley, outside San Francisco, and Route 128 near Boston. "The thinking was that we needed to be in the ballgame," said Castle, now the United States congressman from Delaware. A $6 million state bond helped pay for the first building. Castle said the park had been instrumental in attracting companies that might not otherwise have considered moving to Delaware. It was one of the reasons Delaware was able to attract AstraZeneca Plc. to move here. "It's put us on the map in terms of high-tech," he said. The park has enjoyed strong support from the two governors who succeeded Castle - Tom Carper and Ruth Ann Minner. A major advantage for companies to locate in the park is the opportunity to get access to expensive equipment at DBI and at the University of Delaware, equipment they could not afford on their own. The companies pay to use the equipment, but it's better than shelling out thousands, or even $1 million or more. "They don't have to drive to Philadelphia, or go to Research Triangle Park, to get this," Bowman said. Access to equipment is one reason NanoSelect Inc. is a Delaware Technology Park tenant. The company works with carbon nanotubes, which are one-millionth of an inch in length, to develop chemical sensors to monitor drinking-water quality. The company, which started in 2003, moved to the technology park earlier this year. It rents time on DBI's transmission electron microscope, which enables the company's scientists to see the atoms that compose the carbon nanotubes. "They have all the equipment you need to do nanotechnology," said David Ruggieri, NanoSelect's chief executive officer. Contact Gary Haber at 324-2878 or [email protected]. AT A GLANCE: Delaware Technology Park, a joint venture among the University of Delaware, the state and private industry. LOCATION: Newark WHAT IT IS: 250,000-square-foot office and laboratory complex for companies and organizations in biotechnology, information technology and advanced materials research. TENANTS: 49 tenants employing more than 600 people. FIRST BUILDING OPENED: 1993 CHIEF EXECUTIVE: Mike Bowman, 64, chairman and president |