High-tech hopes for Beehive State

PROVO — Russ Fotheringham can see the day when the Wasatch Front establishes a collaborative economic, high-tech work force similar to northern California's Silicon Valley and North Carolina's Research Triangle.

Both Silicon Valley and the Research Triangle have successfully pooled — and maximized — the resources of local universities, the private sector and government entities to promote the development of high-tech industry and provide residents with solid-salary jobs.

Fotheringham, director of the Utah Valley Economic Development Association, believes it can happen in the Beehive State by following a similar model and marshaling the strengths of Brigham Young University, Utah Valley State College, the University of Utah and Utah State University.

And Fotheringham isn't the only one advocating this concept. Others share his vision.

Representatives from BYU, UVSC and economic development groups around Utah County have formed a committee that meets monthly to explore business acceleration.

"It's a grass-roots effort that's making headway," said Leon Przybyla of BYU's Technology Transfer Office.

Shauna Theobald, regional director of the Small Business Development Center at UVSC, said the objective is for local schools and businesses to work together. "We live in a global economy," she said. "The best ideas and innovations come out of collaboration."

This group calls itself the Utah Technology and Business Accelerator, and its aim is to harness the vast assets they say exist in Utah County to bolster the state's economy.

"We're not operating in a vacuum," said Jonnie Wilkinson, associate director of the state's Office of Business Development and a member of the group. "We need a lot better cooperation among higher education and economic development along the Wasatch Front than we've done in the past, to create jobs. Heaven knows that's what Utah Valley, and the whole state, needs. We feel things could be done more effectively. That happens when people talk and take action."

Przybyla said business acceleration programs are thriving in states like Georgia, Maryland, Wisconsin and Michigan. He is hopeful the same thing can happen in Utah.

The U. and Utah State boast strong research institutions, Fotheringham said. BYU and UVSC are mostly teaching institutions, but he said both schools can make significant contributions, particularly if all of them work together.

BYU, which in recent years has pushed research collaboration between faculty and students, perennially ranks among the top schools in the nation in return-on-investment research, according to Przybyla.