NBIA Honors Top Incubation Programs

The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) recently held its 18th International Conference in Atlanta, honoring excellence in business incubation programs, graduates and client companies. NBIA, a nonprofit organization, works to advance incubation and entrepreneurship. This year’s recipients include:

• The New Century Venture Center (NCVC) of Roanoke, Va., a nonprofit mixed-use incubator, was awarded the top honor, the Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year award. NCVC has assisted more than 75 technology and service companies since 1996, and its 25 graduates have created nearly 200 new jobs in the Roanoke region.
• The University of Central Florida (UCF) Technology Incubator was named Incubator of the Year in technology. During the incubator's four years of operation, client companies have created more than 400 jobs and generated $140 million in revenues.
• The Howard County Economic Development Authority of Columbia, Md., received the Incubator Innovation Award for its Sustainable Business Excellence process, which provides quantitative measures of business development, giving incubator managers a direction for administering assistance to their clients.
• gh LLC, a company in the Purdue Research Park, was awarded the Outstanding Incubator Graduate award in technology. gh provides the visually impaired with access to information through media formats and software applications.
• Hygia Health Services, a graduate of the Office for the Advancement of Developing Industries Technology Center at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, received Outstanding Incubator Graduate honors in the manufacturing/service category. Hygia Health services process low-cost, high-volume medical devices for reuse.
• The Cognoscenti Health Institute, a client of the UCF Technology Incubator, was named Outstanding Incubator Client in technology. The institute uses information technology and biotechnology to deliver medical laboratory services.
• Trident Clinical Research, a client of Todd Street Business Chambers, was awarded Outstanding Incubator Client, also in manufacturing/service. Trident organizes and coordinates clinical trials for pharmaceutical biotechnology and medical devices.

Business incubation programs provide entrepreneurs with expertise, networks and tools needed to become successful. In 2001, North American incubators assisted more than 35,000 start-up companies providing full-time employment for nearly 82,000 workers, according to NBIA. The companies collectively generated earnings of more than $7 billion.

Although they may be new or still developing, other incubators around the country might eventually find themselves on NBIA's award-winning list. St. Louis city officials, for example, are counting on their new Technology Entrepreneur Center to play a role in reviving commerce. Set to open this spring, the center will look to grow new businesses and create jobs in the city.

The center is being financed by a $300,000 donation from Midwest BankCentre, a St. Louis development corporation and other individual donors, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported earlier this year. The center also qualifies for Missouri tax credits that could help raise an additional $300,000 this year, supporters say.

Downtown St. Louis will house the new center, which is expected to have capacity for 10-15 businesses. The Post-Dispatch noted that St. Louis has an abundance of mature, technology-based companies, universities, medical centers and other life sciences research facilities to support the development of related small businesses.

Meanwhile, a technology incubator being planned for Allegany County, Md., might someday receive NBIA recognition for its efforts to slow the area's growing brain drain while retaining research jobs. Baltimore's Daily Record reported that the Allegany County of Economic Development will conduct a study to determine what kind of incubator facility, if any, would be most compatible with the county. A business park situated next to Frostburg State University's Allegany Business Center (ABC) is being considered as a possible location.

Bringing in new companies is proving difficult for Allegany County due to a loss in workforce, the Daily Record says. A survey recently conducted by Frostburg State University indicates 82 percent of graduates that have left the area would have stayed had they been able to find employment.

For more information on NBIA's 2004 award winners, visit: http://www.nbia.org/awards_showcase/index.php