Published November 27, 2005

Cutting-edge creators

By Christine Rook
Lansing State Journal

The Industrial Revolution is over.

The Oldsmobile, its inventor and the century they helped shape are dead.

If mid-Michigan is to have a 21st-century economic revival, it will need 21st-century inventor-entrepreneurs. Translation: a new-generation of industry captains versed in the stuff of computer-tech, nano-bots and microbial chemistry.

R.E. Olds' century created blue-collar and white-collar jobs. This century is predicted to bring gold-collar jobs, positions that are high-paying but that demand a higher level of education.

"The frontiers are a lot wider," said Rawle Hollingsworth, whose company AFID Therapeutics, south of the MSU campus, is engineering chemical compounds as seed money for a pharmaceutical industry Hollingsworth hopes to launch here.

He's talking about an industry where even rank-and-file workers are versed in subjects such as computer programming, biology, chemistry and calculus - an economy that doesn't just rely on technology but that creates, engineers and invents it.

General Motors Corp. is again cutting jobs. Up to 1,600 are at risk locally, and experts predict the auto industry will continue to wane. Fortunately, Michigan State University is a major employer with growth potential.

Inventors in queue

MSU already is inspiring the creation of a high-tech industry that is providing Greater Lansing with dozens of modern inventor-entrepreneurs.

Hollingsworth is one of them. The MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology spun his company from his campus research.

In fact, MSU has helped launch at least 42 high-tech companies since 1981, including well-known organizations such as Neogen Corp., which now employs more than 275 people.

There's evidence the local high-tech industry is gaining momentum.

More than half of the new firms birthed by MSU were formed within the past five years, and more are in queue as professors work on agreements with MSU to license the laboratory technologies they invent.

"Their market is huge," Jim Ruff, director of planning and neighborhood development for the city of Lansing, said of high-tech companies. "It's a worldwide market."

Lansing would benefit from growth in any local industry. It is suffering from a declining job and tax base.

Who are these 21st century inventor-entrepreneurs?

They are people such as Hollingsworth and Laura Patrick of Okemos, who at the age of 25 has turned her master's thesis in chemical engineering into a company, Biopolymer Innovations, she hopes will one day employ 150.

They are people such as MSU professor John Frost, who uses microbes to turn water and sugar into everything from drug components to Defense Department explosives, and local software and audio innovators such as Frank Cugini and Andy Hedberg.

Farming new soil

If the recent announcement of GM plant closings and falling stock prices foreshadow a dark future, emerging tech offers a glimmer of light.

MSU is tapping its expertise in agricultural research to help fuel invention and innovation in the health and biochemical fields.

There's a future in biological and health research, said Jeff Mason, vice president for Technology Development at the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

What does that mean?

• Crops could be grown and converted into renewable energy that eases oil dependency.

• Research improving water and food safety could boost homeland security.

• Better drug delivery systems could be a fixture in the growing health care field.

An ag school is the perfect incubator for a local biotech renaissance.

Frost, for example, makes a type of nylon from sugar and water. He makes adhesives from the same stuff.

Cornstarch, which could be harvested from locally grown corn, is among one of the main starting ingredients for many local researchers.

Other crops might very well yield a new black gold.

"You're looking at someone who wants to see a barrel of oil shoot to $300," Frost said, explaining the high price would force a shift to alternative fuels.

And Michigan with its hundreds of fresh-water lakes and ample farmland is well suited to grow the corn and other crops that can become the renewable, nonpetroleum fuels of the future or the starting ingredients for even more sophisticated research.

A new work force

What will it take to build and maintain a computer and biotech industry here? A well-educated work force, experts say.

According to U.S. Census data, almost two-thirds of the region's population age 25 and older lacks even a two-year college diploma.

In contrast, new-age inventors such as Frost are highly skilled in their technological fields and also versed enough in marketing to see how their inventions can make money.

State officials understand the need for a more educated work force, as well. They recently proposed requiring high school students to take more mathematics and science courses.

Patrick, for example, took four years of math and science in high school.

She then went on to earn a four-year chemical engineering degree from MSU and a master's in chemical engineering, and she's not done yet with her education. She is still taking courses.

And she'll be looking for employees with a high level of education for Biopolymer Innovations. Her company is developing medical uses for products derived from cornstarch.

Someone doing basic quality control will need to be versed in statistics, biology and the life sciences, she said. Even her sales staff will need a science-math background just to be able to deliver good customer service.

"It doesn't hurt to have someone with a Ph.D. doing the selling," she said, because her customers speak Ph.D. language.

In a way, Patrick's research and her young company typify what economic experts expect to see in the decades to come.

She is highly educated and she has tapped the knowledge base of MSU to launch and nurture her company, which she expects to grow and to keep local. It will remain relatively small, though. Probably fewer than 200 employees, and it will be a company that focuses on biotech invention and innovation.

The 21st century economy will be made up of numerous such companies.

"You'll see 100 or 50 people in a company that will be relatively high pay, knowledge-based, gold-collar jobs," Mason said. "The days of one or two large companies dominating the employment base in a community may be gone or disappearing."

Contact Christine Rook at 377-1261 or clrook@lsj.com.

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