Some local entrepreneurs that make it big have changed what goes on here. Founded by a university professor about twenty years ago, SAS Institute is now the largest privately held software company in the world with over 3,000 employees. SAS remains one of the most highly regarded places to have a job with low turnover rates.

In the late ‘80s, the opening of Interstate 40 made transportation easier by connecting Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill with the Park..It also changed the physical look of the Park and allowed it to grow in many different directions. Today RTP is still expanding its road capacity and that has helped with the opening of I-540 connecting the Park north and south.

Q: What is in it for a small entrepreneur who may not have capital but has a lot of energy and ideas?

A: There is good organization. The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), which I happen to be on the board of directors, is one of the oldest entrepreneurial organizations in the country and has four thousand entrepreneurial members. We work with them to attract venture capital and to provide services to entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs here are exposed to a robust and innovative society. Many entrepreneurs are spinouts from the university or the companies. When our big companies both grow and shrink, they all shrink through technology changes. They will have layoffs and then they will have buildups. Every time there is a layoff, because of the quality of the place here, hardly anybody leaves. They start businesses.

Q: As we live in the global world, there are more and more linkages developing in Europe or in Asia. Do you see your role in setting up a RTP kind of facility in other parts of the world?

A: There are parks in South Korea, China, India, Australia, and other places now. A couple years ago, every member of the senior staff of Biopolis, Singapore had come and toured RTP at some point. Any place that has a concentration of knowledge assets will want to find a way for businesses to aggregate in a way that works for them.

Our organization has an existing relationship with the Alsace Region of France. We have some relationships in Denmark. We have relationships with Suzhou and the states to the west and north of Shanghai in China. Today, we have international delegations visit the region two or three times a week and the connectivity is stronger. Our companies in the Park certainly see themselves as global companies.

Q: With the 60% increase in regional exports, where do you primarily export?

A: Canada is our largest trading partner. The next three are Japan, China, and Mexico. China’s growth is 62% in the last three year. Brazil has grown almost 100% in the last three years, even though Brazil is not as big right now. A few years ago, China was very small and, today, it is almost equal to Japan and Mexico. After that, France, the U.K., Germany, and then South Korea are the next largest trading partners. It is predominantly in electronic equipment and pharmaceutical areas.

Q: Do you maintain a Web presence?

A: There are Web presences for the Park itself and the region. The Research Triangle Park’s web address is http://www.rtp.org and the Research Triangle Region’s website can be found at http://www.researchtriangle. org. I am the Executive Vice President and COO for the Research Triangle Regional Parntership. Our organization is recognized as an accredited economic development organization (AEDO) by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). We are related in our boards but we are not the owner of the Park.

Most of our initial contacts for new jobs and new investment come through the Web. The numbers are staggering in terms of the number of people who go looking through the Web as opposed to calling. The Web is there to provide data and our philosophy.

Q: In the next twenty-five to fifty years, do you think there will be a pattern that you can leverage based on your success and experience in the last five decades?

A: You will continue to see an evolution of growth in business that is overlapping our current concentrations. Currently, some of the hotter things in the region are medical devices that combine drug applications with engineering. You are starting to see a lot of advanced gaming here and eLearning that overlap between the contract research and the IT industries.

What is happening with the resurgence of our downtowns. You are seeing more housing and people locating downtown in the cities. You are also seeing a larger restaurant and entertainment scene growing. Growth towards the center was something we noticed over the last 10 years, but with gas prices and other things, we wonder if we are going to grow even denser in the middle. You are going to continue to see people changing jobs faster. The average now in the U.S. is just under four years for a person to stay at a job.

You are going to see a transition in economies from people and from products that have even shorter lifecycles than before. The nature of global connectivity is going to be more important for mid-sized places like us.

I am expecting much more diversity in the population and in the businesses with the underlying strength of life science and IT. I think that densification and wealth building will continue to be part of what is going on.

Exports jumped 60% in the last five years from this region around electronic machinery and pharmaceuticals. We will continue to see exports playing a bigger role in our marketplace and housing choice will be a big change.