News & Events : News : New Hampshire Biotechnology Council in the News
June 27, 2008
The New Hampshire High Technology Council and the New Hampshire Biotech Council: Taking a lead in branding the state's successes
By Richard Fabrizio
Seacoast Online (see original story)
Those jobs account for 7 percent of the New Hampshire's private-sector workers and the impact of this group is beyond what the percentage suggests. The Granite State's high-tech companies make up one-third of the gross state product.
"Technology in New Hampshire is alive and well," said Fred Kocher, president of New Hampshire High Technology Council, a trade group with 250 members stretching from the Seacoast to North Country to the Connecticut River.
The number of tech jobs has risen slowly in the state in recent years, according to the AeA (formerly the American Electronics Association). In 2006, there were 38,202 — about 6 percent above 2003. But, there's much work left to do for New Hampshire to return to its technological peak when it had nearly 48,000 high-tech workers in 2000.
Going beyond that is going to take an effort to brand New Hampshire as a technology state. And, according to Kocher, the 25-year-old New Hampshire High Technology is perfect for the job.
"Right now New Hampshire's high-tech part of the work force delivers 33 percent of the gross state product," he said. "That tells a story, but we need to tell that story outside of the state."
Gov. John Lynch approached the council last year and asked if it would work with him and the N.H. Department of Resources and Economic Development to brand New Hampshire as a high-tech state. The council is now working with DRED to develop a branding plan and Kocher said the first signs of such should come by fall.
New Hampshire has a success story to tell, but Kocher said its high-tech sector faces real challenges like a faltering domestic economy, retiring baby boomer workers and a depleted pool of qualified employees to replace them.
The NHHTC was founded in 1983 by a group of concerned high-tech business owners. Their goal? Bring together representatives from the private and public sectors to establish and maintain financial, technical, management, legislative and educational support programs that encourage innovative research and technology-based industrial development in the state, its Web site states.v The council offers diverse programming that includes Intellectual Property, Wealth Management and MIT Enterprise forums. It has a hand in legislative affairs and offers scholarships for the children of its members. The NHHTC also presents annual awards and created a New Hampshire High-Tech Hall of Fame.
The NHHTC celebrates and promotes its sector and its members. It names a product of the year, which last year went to UltraVision Security Systems of Salem. UltraVision's UltraSensor product is a cutting edge covert intruder detection system.
The NHHTC seeks to raise its member profiles and possibly attract investment dollars. There is no better example of all the parts of the machine whirling together for success than the NHHTC's 2008 Entrepreneurs of the Year.
Paula Long, Peter Hayden and Paul Koning were honored at the NHHTC Awards Recognition Banquet on June 9. The trio started EqualLogic in 2001 and it rose from "an attic to a billion dollar-plus valuation in just seven years," according to the NHHTC. EqualLogic of Nashua manufactures a scalable iSCSI storage solution for IP SAN environments. It was recently acquired by Dell for $1.4 billion.
"These are great companies that are growing and succeeding," Kocher said, "and we recognize them with these awards that give them recognition and marketing opportunities."
Dawn Wivell is director of the International Trade Resource Center at Pease International Tradeport, a NHHTC member specializing in market opportunities.
"It's so exciting for me to see what new technologies are coming out," she said. "It's innovation that's going to carry the economy."
The ITRC helps companies enter the global marketplace, a critical need as the faltering American economy pushes New Hampshire's high-tech companies to look overseas.
"Our member companies doing business overseas are doing better than those companies just doing business here," Kocher said.
According to Wivell, the majority of New Hampshire exports are in the high-technology arena. "Much of the growth in America's exports falls under the umbrella of high-tech," she added.
The relationship between Wivell's office and the NHHTC creates a synergy that is at the core of trade associations.
"Working with the high-tech council allows us many opportunities," Wivell said. "We can reach out to several members in one fell swoop and do joint programs to promote exports."
That relationship extends to New Hampshire's promising biotech sector.
"Biotech is high tech," said Paula C. Newton, president of the New Hampshire Biotechnology Council and a market research specialist with the New Hampshire International Resource Center at Pease.
Newton said the Biotech Council is in the process of creating a new name for itself to better encompass all things that fall under the general bio-tech moniker.
"There's life sciences, med-tech, bio-med," Newton said. "There's so much you would consider high tech like computerized activities and software that are used in bio tech."
The NHHTC helps the Biotech Council push outward. The two groups signed a memorandum of understanding that both would work to address each other's companies when dealing with similar issues or challenges.
But the NHHTC is not limited to awards, forums and networking meet-ups. It's taking on one the biggest threats to the future of the state's high-tech sector, perhaps even the New England economy as a whole.
Kocher calls it the "big squeeze."
"It's our number 1 priority right now," he said.
The big squeeze refers to the number of baby boomers exiting the work force for retirement. The rise of America's high-tech economy parallels the baby boomers' ascent through the business world.
"Too many tech companies are losing their engineers and technicians," Kocher said. "They're retiring and they can't find enough college graduates and trade school graduates to fill those posts. It could mitigate the growth of some companies and technologies if we don't do something about it."
The challenge is exacerbated as firms can't get enough foreign workers because of limited H-1 work visas. Richard Gustafson, president and chief operating officer, Global Relief Technologies of Portsmouth, said the exodus of younger workers from the region heightens the need to act now.
"A number of younger folks have chosen to exit New England states for warmer and dryer weather," Gustafson said. "Companies like GRT need to promote a healthy, great working environment here to keep our workers here and get others to come here."
Global Relief Technologies was among the organizations featured in Jay Childs' documentary, "Communities and Consequences," based on the book by the same name by demographer Peter Francese and Lorraine Stuart Merrill, the state's agriculture commissioner. The prevailing message: The state is losing younger workers so important in replenishing its work force.
Childs is a NHHTC member through his firm JBC Communications of Portsmouth. While his firm is not high-tech he derives benefits from its membership in the council and fully supports its mission.
"High tech is really where the good, high-paying jobs are going to be for the next generation of people who are going to build the New Hampshire economy," Childs said. "A real, robust high-tech industry in New Hampshire is going to benefit my company and benefit me as a citizen of New Hampshire in a lot of ways we may not even think about."
In response to the "big squeeze," the NHHTC made education its top priority and outreach led to a partnership with the New Hampshire College and University Council to create a new Web site that matches college students with company internships and entry-level jobs.
Also, the NHHTC and a coalition including the University of New Hampshire's School of Engineering and Physical Sciences last fall opened a new middle and high school for science and design in Merrimack. In addition to its science-based curriculum, the charter school will teach foreign languages with Mandarin Chinese as its core language.
"You have to set the stage early on in junior high and high school to get them interested in engineering and technology so more will go on to college to major in those areas," Kocher said.
According to one study, that stage has to be set soon. The percentage of young workers holding bachelor's degrees in New England will continue to decline through 2020, according to a Nellie Mae Education Foundation report in June 2006. And even fewer among them are expected to hold degrees in the engineering, technologies and the sciences.
Membership cost in the NHHTC is based on sales. Companies with annual sales of less than $1 million pay $200 a year. Those with annual sales of more than $10 million pay $1,500 a year. For information on how to join the council, visit www.nhhtc.org.