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byline: Donna Alvis-Banks

Steeped in research

Editor’s Note:  This is a continuing series profiling Virginia’s colleges and universities.

“Invent the Future,” the tagline Virginia Tech adopted in 2006, is more than a slogan. It’s becoming a fact.

The university is developing self-driving cars, discerning how our brains work, discovering ways to make cancer cells more receptive to treatment and even engineering batteries that run on sugar.

Scientists and students at the university are participating in these projects and thousands more.

Tech’s involvement with research skyrocketed during Charles Steger’s presidency from 2000 to 2014.  Tech moved up from 51st to 39th in the National Science Foundation’s annual survey of higher-education research expenditures, with $518 million in NSF-reported spending in 2014.

Tech’s eight colleges, seven research institutes and hundreds of complementary centers and labs tackle many diverse projects, including sponsored research conducted or directed by Tech employees but paid for by a company or government agency.

Through Tech’s Office of Sponsored Programs, 2,950 proposals worth $1.3 billion were submitted in 2014 for projects that included collaboration with more than 300 companies, as well as a dozen branches of the federal government. The Department of Defense accounted for 22.1 percent and the Department of Transportation for 10.8 percent of research expenditures. Researchers obtained 19 U.S. and 15 foreign patents.

Skeptical reception
Ray Smoot, a 1969 Tech grad and CEO of the Virginia Tech Foundation from 2003 to 2013, remembers the skepticism that greeted early research aspirations. In his inaugural address, Steger announced plans to make Tech a top-30 research university.

“Many people at the time shook their heads and said, ‘That’s a great goal. But there’s no way,’” Smoot recalls.  Steger didn’t quite reach his goal during his tenure but he came close. His successor, Timothy Sands, plans to continue the momentum.

“We’re in a good place, but more importantly, we’re moving in the right direction,” Sands says in an email. “Since 2004 we’ve passed a dozen major universities in the National Science Foundation rankings. In addition, we’re positioned to advance in fields that have great potential for meaningful discoveries in the coming years. At the same time, we’ve remained true to our land grant mission and ethos of community and service. Being in this position now is a tremendous reflection on the leadership of Dr. Steger and others who came before him.”

In 2000, Tech’s research portfolio was $192.7 million. Soon after, the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) opened in Blacksburg’s Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center and now has more than 250 experts in information biology, as well as $68 million in grants and contracts.

One of VBI’s latest developments is a computer-aided design tool, GenoCAD. It creates a genetic language for plants to influence crop yield and drought resistance. VBI studies also are unraveling the genomes of disease-carrying viruses and modeling the spread of flu pandemics.

During Steger’s presidency, Tech also opened the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville in 2004 and the Virginia Tech Research Center-Arlington in 2011. Both created opportunities for partnerships with corporate research agencies in different parts of the state.

Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute in Roanoke, which opened along with a research-focused medical school in 2007, has embarked on a long-term brain analysis study seeking information about headline-making neurological health concerns such as dementia, autism, depression and substance abuse. Understanding how genetics and environment contribute to the brain’s decision-making strategies is the goal.

Researchers for the Roanoke Brain Study, as it is called, want to create a global information resource providing insight into processes of decision-making. The project, launched in June 2011, has been compared to the 1948 Framingham Heart Study, which tracked the heart health of more than 5,000 Framingham, Mass., residents. In that 60-year study, scientists identified many of the common factors that we now know contribute to cardiovascular disease. The Roanoke

Brain Study is using brain-imaging data, combined with genetics and behavior studies, to track decision-making in a target participation of 5,000 healthy subjects, ages 18 to 85.

Among the research institute’s many other health studies is one noted in November’s online publication of Cancer Research (cancerres.aacrjournals.org), the scientific journal of the American Association of Cancer Research. Researchers in Roanoke discovered a way to make drug-resistant glioblastoma cells sensitive to chemotherapy. Glioblastoma, which accounts for nearly half of all brain cancers, caused the death of Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden. It is typically resistant to a chemotherapy agent called temozolomide, or TMZ.

Robert Gourdie, a professor at the research institute, wondered whether a peptide called aCT1 (pronounced act one) might make glioblastoma cells more sensitive to TMZ. (He had discovered aCT1 serendipitously while doing heart research and later developed it as a topical gel to treat slow-healing wounds.)

Researchers treated human glioblastoma cells with a combination of aCT1 and TMZ and found that the diseased cells began responding to TMZ. Researchers still don’t understand exactly how the combination works, but they suspect it alters the signaling pathways of the cells. While the treatment won’t cure glioblastoma, Gourdie and his colleagues hope that continued study will enhance survival rates for this and other types of tumors.

“From a basic science question about cardiac conduction, we discovered a way to help people with very painful conditions, such as venous leg ulcers or diabetic foot ulcers,” Gourdie notes in an email. “By continuing to explore the potential of aCT1, we’ve now found a way to make human brain cancer cells receptive to treatment. There’s great promise for the future of human health in translational biomedical research.”

Building a reputation
To manage its vast portfolio, Tech has a four-member leadership team — headed by a new team leader. Theresa Mayer, a leading nanotechnology researcher and associate dean for research and innovation at Penn State’s College of Engineering, was selected to direct Tech’s Office of Research and Innovation in December and will formally begin work Jan. 18. Mayer received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech in 1988 and did her graduate work at Perdue University.

Her team includes Martin Daniel, associate vice president for research operations; Srinath Ekkad, associate vice president for research programs; and Elizabeth Tranter, associate vice president for research planning.

Dennis Dean, who served as interim director during the search, will return to his position as leader of the university’s Fralin Life Science Institute. He says Mayer “is the right person at the right time to lead the Virginia Tech research and innovation enterprise.”

“I am very pleased with the appointment,” Dean says of Mayer. “In my opinion she is a good fit at the level of professional experience and achievement, but she also provides an excellent complement to the personalities of our provost and president. This is an exciting time for Virginia Tech.”

As the team’s financial manager, Daniel embraces the research office’s purpose. “Our mission statement is to empower the faculty to do world-class research,” he explains.

Because the role involves facilitating research, Daniel says helping commercialize products resulting from research is part of the job. To that end, he cites two campus nonprofits: Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties — VTIP — and VT KnowledgeWorks. 

“VTIP manages intellectual property and licensing. VT KnowledgeWorks works with faculty and students on the business plans and startup activities for venture companies coming out of Virginia Tech.”

VTIP licensed the biohydrogen patent for Percival Zhang’s “sugar battery,” a biodegradable, rechargeable fuel cell created in 2014 with colleague Zhiguang Zhu in Tech’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering. Their prototype battery, which is the size of an AA alkaline, runs on maltodextrin, a cheap carbohydrate used in processed foods. The researchers started Cell-Free Bioinnovations Inc., which now has four full-time and three part-time employees. Its CEO is Ed Rogers of Charlottesville.

“The company intends to pursue and execute exclusive strategic collaboration agreements with global companies that have the resources to bring new products to market,” Rogers says. In addition to developing a battery that might power tomorrow’s electronic devices, the company has initiated work on three new products, including biohydrogen made from low-cost sugars instead of natural gas. Rogers says potential investors are enthusiastic.

That’s exactly the kind of commercialization of research Tech likes to see.
Tranter says creating systems for business-university collaboration is a goal. Her focus involves interfusing research and business.  “It involves industry doing what industry does best and universities doing what they do best in creating forums where they come together,” she says.

Ekkad certainly represents this union. Before coming to Tech as a professor, he was a mechanical engineer designing aircraft components for Rolls-Royce North America. The corporate relationship proved helpful when Tech and the University of Virginia partnered with Rolls-Royce to conduct research.

“Companies find partnering with Virginia Tech a lot easier than partnering with other universities because we are more responsive to what their needs are,” Ekkad says, explaining that when he arrived at Tech in 2007, the university had just started the relationship with Rolls-Royce. “Since I had worked at Rolls, most of the connections were ongoing with people I knew before. The whole idea is to use our reputation and build on it.”

Smart roads, smart partnerships
Nowhere is the partnership between industry and academia more evident than at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Since its start with a staff of 15 in 1988, VTTI has grown to become the largest university transportation institute in the country for federal and private-sector funding. It now has 500 employees.
VTTI also has 70 government and industrial sponsors. Every major carmaker has used the institute’s Smart Road, a 2.2-mile highway with cutting-edge technology including equipment that can replicate almost any weather condition. The test bed has seen more than 1,000 auto, truck, bicycle, pedestrian and motorcycle safety projects — often resulting in changed U.S. laws and policies.

VTTI recently signed a contract with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to conduct safety testing on automated vehicles, says Tom Dingus, VTTI’s director since 1996. Noting that there are five levels of autonomous vehicle technology, Dingus says VTTI primarily is looking at Level 2 (L2) vehicles for this study. These are vehicles where two controls are automated in unison, such as adaptive cruise control in combination with lane centering.

“Level 5 cars are cars that drive themselves while you play Parcheesi in the back seat,” Dingus quips, noting that L2 technology “means hands off and feet off, but you still have to pay attention. It won’t change lanes by itself.” Level 3 technology, however, allows drivers to take eyes off the road.

Last October, VTTI took its specially built Cadillac with L3 technology to Northern Virginia’s I-95 corridor for a demonstration showcasing the semiautomated car on a public road. VTTI has partners in Northern Virginia where more than 60 roadside equipment units along busy highways provide data on connected-vehicle research. Here, the roadside units wirelessly send alerts about such things as traffic congestion to cars equipped with connections.

Dingus says that while L2 cars are already being produced, L5 cars are probably 20 years away.

“That’s not that far,” he says, predicting that companies such as Uber and Lyft someday may do away with drivers and go to self-driving cars that people can summon with the touch of a button. The whole transportation service model could change so that the typical American doesn’t even own a car but chooses on-demand driverless car services.

The idea, claims Dingus, isn’t far-fetched. “For most people, cars sit idle 95 percent of the time,” he says. “We may see more of a model where very few people own cars.”

Whether we own a car or not, one thing is certain. The future is near.

Another certainty? Virginia Tech is helping invent it.

Growth spurt

Editor’s note: This is a part of an ongoing series looking at Virginia’s colleges and universities as economic engines.

Bruce Brown calls Radford University “the engine that drives the train.”

He might be called the train’s conductor. After serving two terms as a city councilman, Brown is now into his second term as mayor of Radford — a city of 17,441 — so he knows Southwest Virginia, and especially his hometown, as well as anyone.

A recently retired professor and administrator at New River and Wytheville community colleges, he uses words like holistic, dynamic, fluid and synergistic to describe the university’s impact on his city. Brown is now an adjunct professor of management in the university’s College of Business and Economics.
“RU is part of the fabric of this city — always has been and always will be,” he says. “We are inextricably linked.”

That’s been true since 1910 when Virginia’s General Assembly established the State Normal and Industrial School for Women to prepare more teachers for an expanding public school system. Still known for elementary and secondary education programs, RU now offers 69 undergraduate degrees, 21 master’s programs and three doctoral degrees in health-related sciences.

Six presidents have steered RU, but the university credits the sixth (and first female) leader, Penelope Kyle, with an unprecedented growth spurt. Kyle announced in March that she will retire on June 30, 2016, and a search committee has been formed to find her successor.

Since Kyle came to RU in 2005 after 11 years directing the Virginia Lottery, the school has received funding for more than $330 million in capital projects, and student enrollment has hit an all-time high at nearly 10,000, up from 9,552 in 2005. That activity, in turn, has boosted the local and state economies.
Joe Carpenter, RU’s vice president for university relations, says its primary mission, however, has the greatest impact.

“The effect that Radford University has on the economic well-being of the region cannot be expressed in numbers alone,” he notes. “The economic health of the region and the state depend on a well-qualified workforce, which RU supports through high-quality education and training for current and future employees of the region and beyond.”

A boost to local businesses
As the city’s largest employer with 1,603 full- and part-time employees, RU is a “substantial contributor,” says Radford City Manager David Ridpath. He points to the fact that business licenses in the city through March are up 6.6 percent from 2014. Annually, business permits account for $6.7 million, Ridpath says, adding that property tax assessments grew from $790 million in 2010 to $795 million in 2015.

Ridpath says about two-thirds of the university’s students live off-campus and are “spending on rent and utilities, groceries, meals, transportation and entertainment.”

“Our meals and lodging tax is now approaching $1.5 million,” adds Brown, noting that when he started as a city councilman in 2002, “we were lucky to get around $250,000.”

Brown and Ridpath also point to success through collaborations between the city and the university. They include emergency services, public transit (up 12 percent from June to December 2014) student engagement with the city through internships and volunteerism and cooperation on events ranging from festivals to artistic performances to sports championships.

“Athletics continue to grow in stature and performance,” says Brown. “We partner with the university on the Virginia High School League Spring Jubilee sports championship that brings thousands of student athletes and their families in early June for a variety of spring sports.” Additionally, the university has hosted the American Legion’s Boys State convention since 2013, drawing 800 high school juniors selected by their school districts for an intensive week of U.S. government-related activities. This year’s 73rd Boys State is June 21-27.

Carpenter says such events contribute to economic health: “In almost all cases, the Virginia American Legion Boys State participants arrive at Radford because they’ve driven with their parents. Many of those parents will stay overnight off-campus in the area. The students contribute because for one week they live on campus. Just their three meals a day means that food service on campus employs staff.”

RU encompasses most of Radford’s east side, with 204 acres and 65 buildings. Spanning only 9.8 square miles, the city is the New River Valley’s geographic center. It has a beautiful 100-acre park and recreational area with 8.5 miles fronting the New River. Biking, walking and hiking trails are amenities that enhance the town-gown marriage.

Brown recognizes Kyle for “making a concerted effort to welcome people through construction planning,” noting the visual appeal of university entrances from all parts of campus. Recent construction projects include a $44 million College of Business and Economics complex, completed in 2012, and a $32 million Student Recreation and Wellness Center, finished last year. A $49 million Center for Sciences is nearing completion and a $52.8 million College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences building is expected to open next year.

Regional impact
A forthcoming economic impact study conducted by the university and the New River Valley Planning District Commission says RU spent more than $39 million on construction and renovation last year, with local businesses receiving 50 percent of contracts. It notes that the university’s annual spending in Western Virginia through salaries and operational expenses exceeds $100 million. Nonlocal students and visitors bring an extra $40 million to the region.

The report credits above-average median incomes of faculty and staff with advancing area home ownership and consumer spending. The average income for full-time employees is $54,272. Regionally, according to the study, the “extra earnings” of university alumni (increases brought about by improved skills and career prospects) total $235.5 million, producing $181 million in sales at local businesses and supporting 1,493 jobs. The study notes that statewide extra earnings are $815.5 million.

Del. Joseph Yost (R-Blacksburg), who represents Radford and other parts of the New River Valley in the Virginia House of Delegates, says “the profile of the university has skyrocketed during Penny Kyle’s time there.” Now finishing his second term, Yost is the commonwealth’s youngest delegate at 29. An undergraduate at RU when Kyle arrived, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice in 2006 and 2008.

“I very much enjoyed the time I spent at Radford,” Yost says, recalling that “there was some head scratching going on over the fact that [Kyle] did not come from a traditional academic background, but that has not impacted her ability to do great things for the university. Serving as the head of the lottery positioned her well because she had contacts in Richmond.

“I think, overall, I’m lucky because I have Virginia Tech and Radford University in our district. They are among the largest economic drivers in our region,” he adds, noting that while Tech has established itself in research and technology, Radford has “several niches.”
“Historically,” Yost says, “Radford has been a teaching school and a nursing school, which has an important impact on the economy.”

Small Business Development Center
The university’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) also affects the local economy, providing resources for startups and established businesses. With partial funding from a U.S. Small Business Administration agreement, the center provides planning and consulting services, as well as loan packaging assistance and information on business financing sources. Classes, workshops and customized training seminars are available.

Kathy Stewart, owner of Montgomery County’s Professional Rehabilitation Associates, says the SBDC assisted her company, the only private provider of physical, occupational and speech therapy in the New River Valley.

“They tried to help me understand our spreadsheets and how to do some marketing,” Stewart explains. “We have no revenue to back up some of these things. Bigger conglomerates have a whole network to back you up … Small businesses are hard to sustain, especially those in health care.”
Best of all, Stewart adds, the help was free.

To support RU’s financial well-being, the Radford University Foundation was established as a nonprofit in 1973 to raise, invest and administer private donations. John Cox, who has served as executive director for more than four years, says the foundation advances the university’s growth in a number of ways.
“We participate as an economic driver through our funding of scholarships at the university and other spending in support of the university,” Cox says.

He explains that the foundation also encourages entrepreneurial education by providing internships and by funding the Student-Managed Investment Portfolio Organization (SMIPO), a student-run group getting hands-on experience through managing foundation money. The foundation jump-started the SMIPO in 2002 with $100,000 and has provided additional funding over the years. The group celebrated a milestone earlier this year when its small mid-cap value fund portfolio reached $1.2 million.

Currently, the foundation owns real estate worth more than $11 million, and its total assets are nearly $74 million. “Total investments as of June 30, 2014, were almost $57 million,” reports Cox. “Of that total, a little over $47 million was considered endowed.” Foundation President Matthew Crisp noted in the 2014 annual report that for the fourth consecutive year, more than $1 million in financial support benefited RU students.

“We are pleased to share that the foundation’s one-year and three-year returns rank in the 92nd and 86th percentile, respectively, placing our return-on-investment performance in the top 100 college and university endowments nationwide,” Crisp wrote.

Brown — who came to the New River Valley from Front Royal in 1969 to attend Virginia Tech — is pleased, as well. The mayor says settling in Radford and becoming involved in public service has proven propitious. With RU’s success, he notes, “we have been able to rebuild our reserves, which were depleted.”

“Because Radford University is a partner in the city, as well as in the New River and Roanoke valleys, it has been a good time to serve as mayor,” Brown observes. “It’s a pretty vibrant place at this point.”

Enrollment
9,798 students in fall 2014
Gender
58% of students are female; 42% are male
Average class size for freshmen
33 students
Number of undergraduate and graduate programs
153
National rankings
Named among the Best Colleges and Universities in the Southeast, Best Value Colleges and Best 296 Business Schools by The Princeton Review
History
Founded by the Virginia General Assembly in 1910 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women
Tyler Hall was the school’s first official residence hall; sections opened in 1915, 1916 and 1923.
Work to construct McConnell Library began during the Depression.
In the 1970s, Radford began calling its athletic teams the Highlanders in recognition of the Scottish heritage of Southwest Virginia and changed the school colors from purple and gray to the tartan plaid colors of red, white, blue and green.

 

True to its roots

Editor’s note: This is the beginning of a new monthly series looking at Virginia’s universities as economic engines.

What began in October 1872 as Virginia’s first land-grant college for men, attracting just 30 students its first month, now has more than 31,000 full- and part-time students — 42.3 percent of whom are women.  What began as a school for rural Southwest Virginia now has more international students than any other public university in a state that ranks 14th nationally for international student population. And what began as Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College is now Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech.

Established on a large country estate in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech’s original mandate as a land-grant school was to focus on agriculture and the mechanical arts, and for decades it was known primarily for agricultural research and engineering. Virginia Tech and Virginia State University oversee the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, which has offices throughout the commonwealth.

Still acclaimed for those disciplines — its College of Engineering is ranked among the nation’s Top 25 — Tech now is an economic driver for the region and the commonwealth. Not only is it the New River Valley’s largest employer with 8,000-plus employees, but Tech and its related organizations also manage more than $1.5 billion in assets. Montgomery County, a major beneficiary of the impact, has seen employment jump 6 percent and wages rise 5.3 percent since 2010, according to the U.S. Census.  Since 2000, county population has grown nearly 13 percent.

“The university by its mere presence is a huge economic engine,” says Tech spokesman Larry Hincker. “We ran a standard input-output study a few years ago and discovered that we account for 25 percent of all jobs and 33 percent of all payroll in Montgomery County. Conservatively, our economic impact on the region is about $1.5 billion.”

John Dooley, CEO of the nonprofit Virginia Tech Foundation, believes Tech’s prosperity relates to its humble start.

“Virginia Tech was conceived with an unusual mandate as a land-grant university,” he says. “Virginia Tech was from its very beginning about economic development and the translation of research for economic benefit. We were to take knowledge and translate it for the greater good of the people of the commonwealth.”

“We have been true to that,” he adds. “We’ve had an aggressive statewide presence, and we continue to look at ways in which we can advance that position.”

Pinpointing Tech’s greatest asset as “the talent that exists within the university,” Dooley defines the foundation’s role as “helping provide strategic investments that attract and retain that talent for economic impact.”

Real estate holdings
Those strategic investments include substantial real estate holdings — from the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in Roanoke to Tech’s Center for European Studies and Architecture in Switzerland. The foundation’s diverse properties include a 10,000-square-foot Chesapeake Bay seafood research facility, the Hampton Seafood Lab, as well as the 4,000-square-foot Reynolds Homestead educational facility in Patrick County. A variety of properties in the New River Valley range from a Pulaski County golf course to a 47-acre Blacksburg quarry where Tech processes its signature “Hokie stone,” a native limestone adorning most campus buildings.

Although owned by developer W.M. Jordan, the $250 million 100-acre Tech Center at Oyster Point — an office, residential, retail and research complex under construction in Newport News — is a joint venture by the foundation and its for-profit subsidiary, the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (CRC). Dooley says the research park at the complex will be managed by the CRC. The grand opening for Tech Center at  Oyster Point is set for July.

Additionally, the university’s vast research profile includes the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute in Blacksburg and its affiliated Global Center for Automotive Performance Simulation in Halifax County, a recently combined and newly renamed laboratory devoted to tire and new vehicle testing for highway and motorsport usage.

In Prince George County, Tech is one of five state universities involved in the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing, a collaborative research organization working with 21 industrial and governmental partners. CCAM is designed to bridge the gap between research and commercialization, making it faster to bring developments to market.

Other major research initiatives include the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research in Roanoke (a joint venture with Carilion Clinic, which opened in 2010 and graduated its first medical students last May), and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, which opened in 2000. The institute has offices in Blacksburg and Washington, D.C.

In October, Tech signed a new five-year contract with Danville’s Institute for Advanced Learning and Research, a self-described “regional catalyst for economic transformation,” after entering into a partnership with the commonwealth and five others to form the institute in 2000.

The foundation opened its Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington in 2011, providing space for other already established university institutes in Northern Virginia. Research there involves medical technology, cybersecurity and alternative energy, among other areas.

Northern Virginia also is home to Tech’s Marion DuPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg and the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, operating since 1980 as an extension of the School of Architecture and Design.

Corporate Research Center
In Blacksburg, university leaders point to the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, established by the foundation in 1985 with a $4.2 million initial commitment, as the starting point for much of the university’s economic impact during the past 30 years. Originally built on 120 acres of pasture adjacent to the university, the research park opened in 1988 with a handful of tenants. Today, 230 acres have been developed with 29 buildings housing more than 160 companies employing 2,700 people. An expansion to add 19 buildings on 95 acres is underway, and planning for a third phase is in the works.

Joe Meredith, the center’s president since 1993, is a native of Henrico County and 1969 Tech graduate. He says he chose Tech when college boards revealed “my math skills were so high and my English skills were so low that I was told I couldn’t be anything but an engineer.”
“I fell in love with the campus,” he recalls, noting that he was one of 8,000 students in 1965. “When we graduated, it had grown to 12,000.”  Meredith points to the tenure of former President T. Marshall Hahn Jr. as a turning point in Tech’s progress: “In the 1960s, he had the vision that we should be a university, not a college. His vision fueled enormous growth.”

Growth at the CRC, Hincker says, can be attributed to Meredith’s approach, one that “entails a lot of support for companies, large and small.” Many startups concur, including TechLab, a medical diagnostics company built by retired Tech professor Tracy Wilkins with co-founder David Lyerly. The two started the company after getting a patent in 1985 for a life-saving test that determines the cause of a virulent, infectious form of diarrhea called clostridium difficile (C.diff) toxin.

TechLab began with a $50,000 investment and now has $25 million in sales and 125 employees. “We did it the old-fashioned way,” says Wilkins. “We made money and didn’t take it out of the company for many, many years.” In 2013, TechLab expanded with a manufacturing plant in nearby Radford.

“If we hadn’t had the CRC,” Wilkins says, “we wouldn’t have a company. The CRC built our lab for us, and we paid back through increased rent … You start companies where you are. You don’t move somewhere to start a company.
“The university couldn’t have been more helpful. Virginia Tech has the entrepreneurial spirit,” he adds. “Virginia Tech hires the right people.”

Innovative projects
Hincker says the university and its foundation have fostered that spirit in multiple ways: providing early backing for the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council (which, he points out, “is now the second-largest in the state”), working with Blacksburg to start the Blacksburg Partnership (a nonprofit, independent economic development organization), opening the Innovate House residence hall for students interested in entrepreneurism and forming VT KnowledgeWorks, a business accelerator that encourages worldwide entrepreneurship. Just last year Tech’s Pamplin College of Business started the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a resource that teaches students about entrepreneurship and involves them in collaborations with the business community.

John Provo, Tech’s economic development director, notes that the university already has renamed the center — now the Apex Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship — after receiving a $5 million donation from four university alumni who started their successful Richmond IT staffing company, Apex Systems Inc., in 1995. California-based On Assignment bought Apex in 2012 for $600 million, according to Bloomberg.com. In giving the donation, Apex CFO and Tech alumnus Ted Hanson praised Tech for “preparing students for a successful future and cultivating job creation.”

Provo also points with pride to the fact that last year Tech was named by the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities as an Innovation and Economic Prosperity University, one of only 14 schools nationwide honored with the award for contributions to local and regional economies. He says the message delivered by new Tech President Timothy Sands in his installation speech last October greatly “reaffirmed our commitment to all stages of economic development, our distributed locations around the state, and especially a new approach to IP policy.” In that speech, Sands called for lowering barriers to commercialization and company formation by “focusing on unleashing talent rather than on licensing revenue.”

Indeed, Tech’s start as a land-grant school — rooted in inquisitiveness — is perceived by its leaders as a legacy that continues to inspire its influence on the regional and state economy. Meredith, in particular, believes that the CRC’s success is another reflection of that early value system.

“Look at the Cooperative Extension Service. It began as an attempt to take problem solving to the public,” he notes. “I think it’s cultural. I think the problem-solving culture at the university creates people who are looking for problems to solve. It creates entrepreneurs.”

Founded:  1872
Original name:  Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College
Full name: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Total number of students: 31,000+
Total employees: 8,000+
President: Timothy Sands
Virginia Tech Foundation endowment: $800 million
Value of foundation assets:   $1.5  billion

Economic engines

Virginia Tech and the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center are major drivers in the local and state economies. Because of Tech’s research and the companies it attracts to the Corporate Research Center (CRC), business impact is steadily increasing.

“Impact plays out over time,” says the director of Tech’s economic development office, John Provo. “The CRC is more than a quarter century of success. You’ve seen incredible growth, with 160 companies and about 2,700 people working there. The CRC is a great arc over the history of this region.”

The CRC’s current Phase II construction will add 19 buildings to the existing 29 structures. Rackspace, a computing cloud company, opened the first Phase II building in 2012, bringing 100 jobs. The building, designed specifically for Rackspace’s young tech-set, even has an indoor climbing wall.

CRC President Joe Meredith says the center was selected by the Association of University Research Parks as one of 18 founding members of the Academy of Outstanding Research Parks. In August, it hosted the VT Knowledgeworks Global Partnership Week, a business challenge that brought students and faculty from universities around the world together to explore new business concepts.

Larry Hincker, Tech’s vice president for university relations, points to the statewide economic impact of university research. “The best example is the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing,” he says. “This was an initiative resulting from the state’s courtship of Rolls-Royce. The state sweetened the pot by offering up Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia.”

The academic partnering attracted not only Rolls-Royce but also 19 other major manufacturers to the Prince George County center, which opened last year with the goal of bridging the gap between research and commercialization, speeding up the process of getting developments to market. In July, European aerospace giant Airbus became one of the latest members of the collaboration.

In other recent developments, Virginia Tech was named one of only six test sites in the nation for drone research. The Federal Aviation Administration declared Tech’s program fully operational in August when Gov. Terry McAuliffe and leaders from three states gathered to watch a simulation at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s Smart Road. The Arlington-based Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International predicts that drone commercialization will add more than $13.6 billion to the national economy by 2025. Tech’s research will assist the government in developing regulations for the technology.

Tech’s Pamplin College of Business launched a new Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship last December and operations are now underway. Linda Oldham came from Georgia Tech in August to serve as executive director, and Derick Maggard, former director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council, came onboard as director in July. The center’s purpose is to support entrepreneurship and innovation by offering courses, mentoring, networking and fostering research projects between participants and faculty members. Tech alumni who have become successful entrepreneurs will work with participants, as well.

To support and inspire entrepreneurship, Tech has two other new projects. Last year, Innovate, a living-learning community for students of any major, opened on Blacksburg’s Oak Lane. The residence program equips students with an understanding of entrepreneurship and associated business practices through a network of peer and faculty partnerships. Students in the program commit to one year of participation but may opt for more.

Virginia Tech Foundation CEO John Dooley also points with enthusiasm to NuSpark, a startup resource that began in February. NuSpark is open to people over 18 in the Roanoke-Blacksburg region who want to work on an idea with the goal of commercializing or implementing it. NuSpark offers work space, workshops and one-on-one mentoring opportunities.

This month, Dooley notes that Tech is offering a new conference on entrepreneurship and innovation, TEC2014. It’s happening Nov. 14-15.