Laboratories at UNR, DRI seen as keys for growth

The Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada is coming off a big year, and hundreds of companies are scouting the region for possible new offices, distribution centers and factories.

At the same time, however, executives looking to build the region's economic future keep a close eye on a modest and young program to commercialize research from the University of Nevada, Reno, and the Desert Research Institute.

And the effort to bring research into the marketplace is likely to become even more important as northern Nevada begins to bump into limitations that otherwise might slow its rapid development, says Chuck Alvey, president and chief executive officer of EDAWN.

The economic development agency is coming off a record fiscal year 29 new companies, 10 expanding companies, one company convinced to stay here rather than move.

That work generated 2,022 jobs in the 12 months ended June 30, and EDAWN estimates the economic impact of its work at $267 million.

But as any sales manager knows, the problem with a big year is this: How are you going to top it next year? Tentatively, the EDAWN board has set a goal of $305 million in economic impact from new and expanding companies during the fiscal year that began July 1.

On one hand,Alvey says, that number looks reasonable.His staff believes that approximately 250 companies are scouting the region as the possible site for new facilities.

"We've got the basic image and interest in the community turned around," he says.

But no one knows how many of those companies ultimately will land in northern Nevada.

And some of the decisions may be years away.

"It's not easy," the EDAWN chief says.

And it's all the harder these days because the region's very success has created some challenges labor supplies and housing prices,most notably.

Employers looking at the region see an unemployment rate that has run below 4 percent for months and wonder if they'll be able to find help.

And executives and workers moving to the region these days are paying home prices that are 32 percent higher than they were a year ago the third-fastest rate of appreciation in the nation.

That reduces some of northern Nevada's advantages, particularly when relocating executives compare prices between Reno and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The conflict between ever-rising goals and ever-more-difficult challenges is bringing more attention to the effort to combine research from UNR and DRI with entrepreneurial capital to create new jobs in the region.

Two years after DRI and UNR joined forces to create an office of technology transfer, DRI recently received its first licensing payment $16,000 from a Colorado company that's commercializing a technology to measure droplets in a gas.

(Droplet Measurement Technologies Inc.

of Boulder thinks the patented DRI system might be useful in measuring pollution or improving cloud-seeding.) That's one of two technologies currently licensed by the joint venture of UNR and DRI, says Scott Haugher, DRI's vice president for government and business relations.

The agencies have another six technologies available for license, six more in the pipeline and expect to have six to 10 available each year, says Haugher.

Nevada is fairly late into the game of licensing its research some universities and research institutions have close to 25 years experience and no one can predict how the new technology transfer program might develop.

Haugher says, however, that other states have learned that killer discoveries are rare see the University of Florida and its Gatorade while most technology programs generate just enough revenue to cover the costs of administration and patent applications.

But DRI and UNR also consider more than their own budgets.

"It's a given,"Haugher says,"that one of our missions is science- and technologybased economic development."