Governor Jim Martin

© ASSOCIATED PRESS

It was 1977, and Jim Hunt, the newly elected governor of North Carolina, was determined that his traditionally agricultural state would start growing a more fruitful economy. "Early in his first term, Hunt clearly sent out a signal across the state that he was interested in higher-paying jobs," says Ferrel Guillory, who covered Hunt's governorship for the Raleigh News and Observer. "It sounds quaint today that that would be a big deal," Guillory says, but some saw such efforts as a threat to the state's traditional economy.

Hunt's background in agriculture - bachelor's and master's degrees in agricultural education and agricultural economics - helped him to see biotechnology's promise. "I had that perspective that we can work with genetics to improve the varieties of our crops and animals, and we'll have something more valuable," Hunt says from his current office at Raleigh law firm Womble Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice.

As he looked for ideas, Hunt constantly read about science. "I just remember that, all of a sudden, in learning about biotechnology and what we can do in working with cells, it became clear to me that biotechnology had more potential for the future than anything that came along," he says.

Hunt turned out to be right. He helped lay the foundation for North Carolina's biotechnology industry, and subsequent governors - including a rare Republican governor for North Carolina, Jim Martin, and the current governor, Democrat Mike Easley - expanded his vision.

One of Hunt's legendary accomplishments was appointing a legislative commission to study biotechnology, which resulted in the creation of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. "It was Governor Hunt and his administration who said, 'We really think this looks like a good opportunity for the state,'" says former state senator Gerry Hancock, who cochaired the study commission. The commission asked the center to plan the state's efforts, including investing in the already-strong universities, attracting entrepreneurs and investment capital, and spreading the word about the state's capabilities. "We couldn't just send a bunch of money over to the universities and hope that would be enough," Hancock says.

In Hunt's first term (out of an unprecedented four) he also helped found the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, a much-copied effort to improve high school math and science education. "There was hardly any down time with Jim Hunt," Guillory says. "He always seemed to be working on something."

Governor Jim Hunt

© ASSOCIATED PRESS

Current Governor Mike Easley expanded North Carolina's biotechnology strengths. "From the time he became governor, he's understood that this was already an important part of the state's economy, and I think he wanted to do everything he could to develop it," Hancock says. In 2006, for example, Easley proposed a $2 million increase in the Biotechnology Center's appropriation.

As the state faced some devastating economic losses, including the closing of textile-manufacturing companies, Easley helped launch programs to keep workers competitive. The NC New Schools Project, for example, creates small high schools focused on themes, including health and life science, engineering, and computer technology. In 2005, eleven of these schools opened, and a total of 75 are scheduled to open by 2008. In addition, under Easley's tenure the state launched the North Carolina Biomanufacturing and Pharmaceutical Training Consortium.

In thinking about such projects, Easley writes, "Just as North Carolina's 7,000-acre Research Triangle Park set the standard for research parks when it opened in the late 1950s, and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center raised the bar as the first state-sponsored biotech center in the 1980s, these new, innovative worker-training initiatives will ensure that North Carolina maintains its position as a national leader in biotechnology for years to come."

Easley also understands that no effort will succeed in isolation, Taylor says. In addition to supporting workforce training, Easley recommended loan programs as well as tax-policy changes that can help research-oriented companies. "He proposed last year to reduce the state sales-tax rate on research equipment purchased by nonmanufacturing companies to the same rate that the manufacturers pay for their manufacturing equipment," Taylor says. "That's a very important boost to our small companies."

Governor Mike Easley

© ASSOCIATED PRESS

James Martin, the Republican who served two terms as governor from 1985 to 1993, in-between Hunt's second and third terms, also understood the importance of keeping biotechnology strong. "Governor Martin became, over the years, one of the strong continuing supporters of the Biotechnology Center," Hancock says.

Though Martin is a former chemistry professor with a PhD from Princeton, supporting biotechnology wasn't about promoting science for science's sake. "It was about creating better jobs for our people," Martin says. For instance, Martin supported programs to improve elementary and secondary education. "It's not enough to provide doctoral research programs," he says from his office in Charlotte, where he is now the chief executive officer of Carolinas HealthCare. "You've got to bring along your population so that people are prepared to take that higher-education step and prepared to benefit from training for the technical jobs."

In 2004, Easley appointed Martin and Hunt as cochairs of a committee that produced the state's strategic plan for biotechnology, "New Jobs Across North Carolina." The plan emphasizes the need for the state to expand its efforts to develop research enterprises and biomanufacturing. Hunt says, "You get the payoff in terms of jobs when you take the biotechnology research and findings and do things with them that society wants to purchase, and things that improve lives." The plan details 54 strategies for increasing the number of biotechnology jobs in North Carolina to 125,000 by the year 2023. It's also an example of Easley, Hunt, and Martin working together to increase the yield of those seeds that Hunt sowed 30 years ago.