A NEW ECONOMY
S.C. leaders want to encourage research that creates knowledge-based, high-tech companies, then convince the companies to keep their headquarters - and their jobs - here. The path so far:
Nov. 7, 2000: S.C. voters approve a state-operated lottery that earmarks profits for education.
Spring 2001: Midlands leaders begin to talk about a research initiative paid for with lottery profits. Sen. Tommy Moore, D-Aiken, proposes using $6 million a year to attract top researchers to USC, Clemson and MUSC.
Feb. 21, 2001: Mayor Bob Coble convenes about 200 city and business leaders for what will become an annual technology summit. They pledge to develop a technology-based economy for the Midlands, in part through local incentives.
September 2001: Gov. Jim Hodges' Technology Transition Team, headed by Harry Lightsey III, president of BellSouth-South Carolina, unveils a new state economic development strategy. The plan urges attracting more investment capital and setting up "endowed chairs" for luring world-class research scientists. Similar proposals have fallen short. But Lightsey says this one marks "a turning point."
October 2001: State politicians, university presidents and business executives visit N.C. State University's Centennial Campus in Raleigh to gather ideas for a catch-up strategy in the research race. "There's no reason why South Carolina can't do this," says House Speaker David Wilkins.
January 2002: USC president John Palms and Westinghouse's Savannah River Technology Center sign an agreement for collaborative hydrogen research.
Early 2002: When USC trustees call for nominations for a new president, Harris Pastides, dean of the public health school, quietly submits suggested to search committee chairman William Hubbard the name of a former colleague, University of Alabama president Andrew Sorensen.
May 2002: Legislators authorize $200 million over several years, beginning in 2003, for endowed research chairs at Clemson, USC and MUSC. The grants must be matched with private, school or federal money.
July 1, 2002: Sorensen declares on his first day on the job that his main focus will be making USC a premier research institution. He touts public-private partnerships he helped forge at the universities of Alabama and Florida. He boosts Pastides to interim vice president for research.
September 2002: BMW Manufacturing, the Upstate arm of the German luxury carmaker, pledges $10 million to help create an automotive research center for Clemson in Greenville. The move jump-starts a project conceived as a wind tunnel lab for NASCAR.
December 2002: Pastides says USC must focus on fewer areas of research, saying nanotechnology and biomedical research look promising. Some liberal arts professors question the increased focus on the sciences.
February 2003: At the city's annual technology summit, Coble launches an ambitious plan to reshape the Midlands economy by recruiting emerging technologies. Sorensen announces USC wants to build a massive downtown research campus, using a study provided by Craig Davis. Davis developed N.C. State University's Centennial Campus in Raleigh, a 1,300-acre research park with 60 tenants and 1,500 employees.
June 2003: City leaders establish the Columbia Regional Technology Council, 11 people dedicated to making the region a hub of high-paying, high-tech jobs.
June 2003: The National Science Foundation selects USC's engineering college as the only NSF-designated Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Fuel Cells. The center will develop technology to commercialize fuel cells.
June 2003: Clemson demands and receives half of that year's $30 million for endowed chairs. President Jim Barker and board chairman Bill Amick tout their automotive project's momentum and its sponsor, BMW. In a Solomon-like gesture to USC and MUSC, the endowed chairs board reaches into the next year's allotment for $11 million more.
September 2003: USC hires Davis to develop its research campus. He will build space for private industry next to USC's research buildings and help the school recruit private investment and tenants for those buildings.
November 2003: Sorensen names Pastides to the new position of vice president for research and health sciences.
December 2003: USC hires away from the University of Maryland a top-tier physics professor to hold its first endowed chair. Richard Webb, courted by USC for more than a year, is expected to jump-start the school's fledgling nanoscience program.
February 2004: Clemson hires Robert T. Geolas as director of its International Center for Automotive Research (ICAR) in Greenville. Geolas is a past coordinator of Raleigh's Centennial Campus.
Feb. 19, 2004: Greenville-based Michelin North America says it will give Clemson $3 million for a professorship in vehicle electronic systems integration.
March 2004: The Legislature approves the Life Sciences Act, which creates a $50 million state-run venture capital fund and reserves up to $220 million to build research facilities at USC, MUSC and Clemson if the schools provide matching funds. The law also makes it easier to partner with private developers. Republican Gov. Mark Sanford vetoes the bill, but lawmakers override him.
April 2004: Greenville Hospital System and Columbia's Palmetto Health join USC and MUSC to form Health Sciences South Carolina. The goal is to attract major research grants that none could hope to win alone.
May 2004: The U.S. Department of Energy designates the Savannah River Technology Center a national laboratory, a status that could convert the former atomic weapons plant into a magnet for hydrogen fuel research.
May 10, 2005: USC unveils plans for three research buildings, two private buildings and two parking garages as Phase I of a research campus. The $141.2 million plan includes Foundation Square, across Lincoln Street from the Colonial Center, which Pastides calls "the town square of the whole research campus."
May 24, 2005: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., worries the cacophony of S.C. voices coming to Washington for assistance with hydrogen fuel cell research is eroding the state's effectiveness. He summons more than a dozen leaders and forcefully encourages them to work together.
June 28, 2005: Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., forms the U.S. House Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Caucus.
July 2005: Clemson hires Thomas Kurfess, a mechanical engineering professor at Georgia Tech, to fill the BMW endowed chair and serve as director of the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Graduate Engineering Center.
September 2005: USC unveils a new name and concept for its 200-acre campus in Columbia's Vista. "Innovista" is a unique urban model, Pastides says. Most research parks are separate from main campuses and have restricted access. USC's campus "will be as much a part of city of Columbia as a part of the University of South Carolina," he says.
Sept. 15, 2005: Toyota Motor Corp. partners with the Center for Hydrogen Research in Aiken County, adjacent to the Savannah River National Laboratory, to develop a lightweight, affordable fuel storage system for future hydrogen-powered autos.
Sept. 16, 2005: The state's research infrastructure panel approves $10.8 million for USC's NanoCenter. It gives Clemson $24.6 million for various research facilities, and Health Sciences South Carolina, $4.5 million.
November 2005: The J.E. Sirrine Textile Foundation, a donor to higher education since 1944, liquidates itself, giving its $5.6 million to Clemson for two endowed chairs in advanced fibers research. The move is rich in symbolism - a passing of the torch of economic power from the state's textile barons to new sciences and technologies.
March 2006: USC wins the elite Carnegie Foundation designation as an institution of "very high research activity." The moniker goes to 62 public and 32 private U.S. research institutions.
April 2006: USC and Columbia's Guignard family unveil a master plan for 500 acres in downtown Columbia, including Innovista's 200 acres, with a large riverfront park at its core. USC says the plan, a guide for developers, would create a modern urban environment to attract world-class scientists and their assistants.
June 2006: EngenuitySC and USC announce plans for an incubator for fuel cell companies in Innovista. EngenuitySC, a strategic leadership group, will use a $400,000 federal grant to build the specialized wet-lab required.
August 2006: The Duke Endowment announces a $21 million, three-year grant to Health Sciences South Carolina. It is the largest grant ever made by the endowment's $2.7 billion health care division and is viewed as an affirmation of the state's decision to develop its health sciences.
October 2006: The Ohio-based Timken Co. opens a $30 million research center in Greenville expected to employ nearly 200 local workers within months.
November 2006: USC takes a blow when an unnamed Fortune 100 company that was to take over a large part of Innovista's first privately developed building pulls out.
December 2006: House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, proposes $15 million in state grants and credits go to companies conducting hydrogen fuel research in the state and partnering with S.C. institutions. Harrell also proposes boosting the state's LIFE and Palmetto Fellow college scholarships for students studying math, science or engineering. LIFE grants would rise to $7,500; Palmetto grants, to $10,000.
January 2007: USC recruits the head of the University of Connecticut's fuel cell center to direct its new solid oxide fuel program. Kenneth Reifsnider praises the state's research assets, state lawmakers' commitment and the high level of cooperation between the business sector, research institutions and local governments.
January 2007: USC announces the appointment of John Parks, director of the University of Kentucky's Coldstream research park, as executive director of Innovista.
January 2007: "The Greater Columbia Fuel Cell Challenge," an alliance of the city's hydrogen-friendly organizations, calls for proposals to build a hydrogen fueling station in Columbia by July 1, 2008. The station, and a hydrogen-fueled bus for USC's campus, would be in place for the annual convention in Columbia of the National Hydrogen Association in Spring 2009.