A regional initiative targeting a growing sector of the economy in an attempt to attract high-paying jobs to the region sounds like a familiar story.
As with past efforts, Northeastern Pennsylvania Regional Biosciences Initiative launched with grand goals: "We have today - within our grasp - tools to reduce unemployment, create better-paying jobs for residents, build sustainable and more secure careers for our children," said a news release at the announcement of the initiative.
The big promise seemed to echo Wall Street West, an effort championed in 2004 by a similar cross-section of local business and civic leaders. Then-U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski fanned the hopes, predicting "a lasting prosperity" would result from promoting the region as a back office for the New York City financial industry at a time when it was concerned about terrorism and blackouts.
Founders of the Great Valley Technology Alliance said the region could become "the next great knowledge economy in the U.S."
The bioscience push stepped off with similar determination but muted promises earlier this month. While most states and many regions have concerted efforts to attract bioscience jobs, local leaders proceed on the idea that you can't win unless you play.
"You don't hit a home run every time at bat," said William Scranton III, a force behind the initiative. "We aren't promising pie-in-the-sky. We are saying that we are going to work at this."
The region still needs its grand slam, finding the sector in the new economy to overcome the looming legacy of coal and the decline of manufacturing. Ideally, it will be an industry that will define the region as a center of something.
Technology alliance
Some past efforts fouled out or at best got on base. They were also remarkably ill-timed. Nine months in the making, the Battelle Memorial Report was received in December 1999 and the Great Valley Technology Alliance, GVTA, formed three months later to carry out its directives to help foster an entrepreneurial culture, encourage collaboration between businesses and higher education and create an environment attractive to tech companies. Battelle branded the region from Hazleton to Scranton "The Great Valley." The Battelle report said "The Great Valley is poised to recast its economy, its destiny, its future." The dot-com bubble burst on March 10 and the tech sector collapsed, impairing the ability of the effort to develop jobs in the region.
Wall Street West began as a collaboration between economic development marketing firm Penn's Northeast and GVTA to pitch Pennsylvania as the location for financial data backup centers and secondary offices. But by 2004, companies' worries were ebbing. That effort was hampered by a discovery that real-time, synchronous backup was just about impossible in the Keystone State. It was too far away, even for the speed of light through fiber-optic cables. The Wall Street West dreams came down, completely, with Lehman and Bear Stearns as a recession was unleashed by the financial sector collapse.
Nevertheless, armed with a $15 million grant from the Department of Labor, the Wall Street West effort recast as a 10-county skills development program and made more than 60 grants, "laying the foundation of a regional transformation." Jobs created, while not a goal of the program at that point, were few.
Fell short
Past initiatives fell short of the promise, admitted state Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald. They weren't bad ideas, or poorly executed. They were victims of massive shifts in the economy. They paid off in increasing collaboration in the region, growing jobs incrementally, and creating a welcoming environment for startups.
"The Great Valley Technology Alliance and Wall Street West were buffeted by macro economic trends," he said. "You can't discount the seeds that were planted. That work brought us to this point."
The unveiling of the Regional Biosciences Initiative is the result of a study issued by AngelouEconomics, an Austin, Texas, consulting firm, in June 2011. The region will likely find plenty of competition in wooing growing or startup biotech firms. Biosciences is the hot buzzword in economic development. According to the Biotechnology Industry Organization, as of February, 42 states had programs specifically targeted toward technology and biosciences. A quick Internet search shows concerted efforts nationwide, such as the New Orleans Bio Innovation Center and the Kansas Bioscience Initiative.
What gives Northeast Pennsylvania a leg up?
The area has the assets, said James Cummings of Mericle Commercial Real Estate, who serves on a subcommittee of the biotech effort. The area may have more going for it now than it had angling for Wall Street firms or tech companies. A growing medical services sector, a large pharmaceutical company in Sanofi-Aventis, other existing biotech companies, related higher educational programs, proximity to a biotech corridor extending from Boston to Washington - all offer the foundation of a larger biotech sector.
Building blocks
"We have the building blocks in place already and now we also have the Commonwealth Medical College," Mr. Cummings said. "It is not a reach or far-fetched to think that we can't grow what we have at least a bit more."
Mr. Scranton goes further, citing the investment in medical service delivery by Community Health Systems and Geisinger. The stability of the local population lends itself to study and research. While the region lacks a major research university, area schools have staff expertise and facilities capable of high-level research in collaboration with each other, or an industry partner, Mr. Scranton noted. The results may not be immediate, but the potential is there.
"You don't recast an economy over a few years; you do it over a decade or more - then it is ongoing," Mr. Scranton said. "We are not going to be Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle. We have a way to provide very good jobs to a good number of our people."
Contact the writer: dfalchek@timesshamrock.com