President Hunter Rawlings addresses the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce at the organization's monthly business briefing at the Ramada Inn-Airport, Aug. 26. Charles Harrington/University Photography
"Economic development is not the first order of business for Cornell, but we are committed to it." With those words, and a host of examples, Cornell President Hunter Rawlings outlined the university's role in the local economy to a recent business briefing sponsored by the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce.
About 100 members of the local business community attended the Chamber's monthly business breakfast Aug. 26 at the Ramada Inn-Airport.
In addition to Cornell being the county's largest employer, with more than 8,600 faculty and staff on the local payroll, it is a major purchaser of goods and services, Rawlings told his audience. It also has about 18,800 students at Ithaca and attracts tens of thousands of their family members, friends and other visitors each year.
"Cornell is in the education, research and outreach business," Rawlings stressed, and he said, "economic development is a way to safeguard and enhance the quality of life that makes Cornell attractive to the best faculty, staff and students."
He added that higher education the major business in Tompkins County does have many positive economic spin-off benefits, such as companies that get their start at Cornell and then grow in the Ithaca area.
The university tracks the impact of Cornell research on small-business development in the region, Rawlings said. A report prepared by Norman R. Scott, Cornell's vice president for research and advanced studies, highlights 60 firms with more than 2,800 employees in the Ithaca area and Finger Lakes region with annual revenues approaching the $300 million mark. Some of the companies were founded by Cornell, faculty, staff, students or alumni with a transfer of university technology; others were created in large measure because of a Cornell technology or located in the region in order to be close to the intellectual resources of Cornell.
"We're entering a 'knowledge-based economy' where the U.S. economy is growing because of small, research-based companies," Rawlings said. The local economy is no different, he added, primarily because of the spin-off effect.
Rawlings pointed to two companies Viral Therapeutics and Autodesk that now call Ithaca home.
Viral Therapeutics Inc. is based in the Cornell Business and Technology Park, where it develops products for biological research applications, including work on infectious diseases such as AIDS.
Viral Therapeutics was developed with assistance from Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management and the Cornell Biotechnology Program. It regularly uses the DNA sequencing and synthesis facilities of Cornell's New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Biotechnology, and its vice president, a Cornell graduate, is a member of the advisory board for the Center for Advanced Technology in Biotechnology.
Autodesk Inc., a California-based software company, is opening a research and development facility at 1050 Craft Road. A company spokeswoman said that Autodesk was drawn to Ithaca by Cornell's strong reputation in engineering and because it has been impressed by the quality of Cornell engineering graduates, several of whom are already on its staff.
"The growth of small companies that this community is experiencing does not make headlines in the newspaper or on television. It's often unspectacular, but it is a basis for the community's strength," Rawlings said.
Rawlings explained that Cornell, like most universities, will have very limited growth and quite possibly contraction in some areas. "We're not likely to add great numbers of faculty members, students or staff. We're not likely to drive the local economy by growing the way we did in the '60s, '70s and on into the '80s. Our meteoric growth has slowed," he said.
"Growing our way to excellence and prosperity is no longer a viable option, so it is more important than ever that the university and local community work together to keep the local economy strong," Rawlings said. "There are not many areas where high-minded public purpose and enlightened self-interest come together so seamlessly, but ensuring a strong local economy is one of them."
Rawlings said there is more the university can and will do, in partnership with the local community, to turn university-based knowledge into a means of economic stimulation. He cited some steps taken earlier this year to consolidate the major economic-development functions of four of the university's technology access units into one the Office of Economic Development.
That office, headed by Lynn Jelinski, professor of engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) in Biotechnology at Cornell, makes it easier for faculty, staff and students to interact with industry. It also makes available to the business world the university's resources for scientific and business aid, as well as facilities and technology licensing through "one-stop shopping."
The Cornell Biotechnology CAT is one of the units within the Office of Economic Development. It has helped spawn 17 biotechnology companies in the state since 1991, and it helps more than 50 companies statewide with business and technology assistance each year.
Also part of the new administrative structure is the Cornell Office for Technology Access and Business Assistance (COTABA), which supports Cornell faculty, staff and students in the creation of new businesses.
In its first two years, COTABA has provided consultations to 75 individuals that resulted in the creation of 10 new companies, several grants and a number of new products under development. In cooperation with Tompkins County Area Development, it helped create the Finger Lakes Entrepreneurs Forum, which has nearly 100 members and meets monthly. Richard Holsten, who is also director of research for the biotechnology CAT, assumed the directorship of COTABA at the beginning of this year.
The Cornell Research Foundation (CRF), which helps faculty and staff with patents and licensing and holds and manages patents that arise from Cornell research, is also under the Office of Economic Development umbrella. In 1995-96, CRF filed 66 U.S. and 63 foreign patents more than one U.S. patent a week and managed a portfolio of 358 patents. Michael Stamm, president of Tompkins County Area Development (TCAD), serves on the CRF board.
The Office of Economic Development also takes in the Cornell Business and Technology Park, which has 76 tenants 67 percent of them technology-based companies that do research associated with or derived from Cornell. Companies in the park, many of which also have received assistance from TCAD, employ 1,300 people, with an annual payroll of $32 million, and generate property taxes of $320,000 a year. Some $23 million in private investment has come to the park in the past 10 years.
In addition, Jelinski's office manages a technology development fund to help faculty move new technology closer to commercialization. Her office serves as a clearinghouse to match potential entrepreneurs and managers of new ventures with Cornell researchers and projects and helps campus researchers network with Cornell alumni who are interested in supporting new ventures.
In recent months, Rawlings said, Jelinski and TCAD's Stamm have been going on "field trips" to local companies including Borg-Warner, High-Speed Check Weigher, Ithaca Peripherals, Alex Computer, Claritas and Axiohm to explore how the university and local companies might work together more effectively.
Although it has been in existence for just seven months, Jelinski's office already has received national attention. It was featured, along with a similar new office at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in the June 30 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, published by the American Chemical Society and sent to 130,000 subscribers nationwide.
One aspect of economic development highlighted in the article was the issue of spousal employment.
"More and more, Cornell is finding that in order to attract a top faculty or staff member, we need to be able to find a high-quality job for his or her significant other. I understand that many local companies have the same challenge when they try to recruit people to fill key positions. This is a problem that Cornell and local businesses can address together to the benefit of us both," concluded Rawlings, noting that Jelinski's office would tackle this issue as a high priority.
Cornell's Office of Economic Development already has set up a World Wide Web page that carries job openings at local companies and a campus-wide network to assist in securing employment opportunities for significant others.
The university also has made a three-year commitment of $160,000 to help fund a "virtual incubator" in Tompkins County. The Business Innovation Center (BIC) is not a building that must be kept occupied and maintained, rather it assists selected start-up companies especially those with the potential to create employment opportunities locally by providing one-to-one business services such as marketing and business-plan review, and by securing capital and investment funding. Other BIC partners include TCAD and Tompkins County.
In closing, Rawlings told the Chamber members: "I firmly believe that a strong community and a strong university are essential to the greater Ithaca area's continued economic development and good health and that both can be achieved through cooperation and partnership."