Editor’s note: Congressman David E. Price has been serving as the U.S. Representative for North Carolina’s 4th congressional district since 1997.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK — I recently had the pleasure of touring and co-hosting a town hall with First Flight Venture Center (First Flight or FFVC). For more than 25 years, FFVC has provided early-stage companies and entrepreneurs with critical technologies, services, and networks to help strengthen and sustain their viability in commercial markets.
The unique nature of First Flight is rooted in its origination from the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which recognized the critical need for startups to access highly-specialized equipment and services. Today, First Flight provides roughly 40 companies with access to prototyping equipment, workspaces, and training for a reasonable monthly fee. I witnessed some of these special resources at the Hangar6 facility, which is home to various advanced technologies such as 3D printers, scanners, and lasers – a very “futuristic” woodshop.
After I toured the center, I held a town hall meeting with various members of the FFVC Community, including current companies or graduates of First Flight, angel investors and other participants in the Research Triangle’s entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem. First Flight resident companies span several industry clusters, including biotech, health tech, pharma, clean tech and next generation energy, sensors, and imaging and materials processing technology.
Jon McDunn of Clinical Sensors presents their technology to the First Flight town hall attendees. Clinical Sensors is a spin out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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We are fortunate to live in an area that understands the importance of small business entrepreneurship to our economy and quality of life. The Research Triangle area of our state is particularly unique: we are an educational hub with locational access to urban and rural industries. Many of the individuals who participated in the town hall were from companies that specialize in products and technologies developed from research conducted at our local universities, while others were with firms that provide services to local institutions, both large and small.
In Congress, I will continue to advocate for policies that strengthen small firms’ access to capital, including efforts to ease access to credit, reduce healthcare costs and ease access to new markets abroad. Another major driver of innovation and economic growth is investment in federal research. About half of the nation’s basic research is directly supported by federal agencies. Any insistence on slashing such domestic investments directly undermines our long-term economic vitality.
Science and technology getting us to where we want to go will require coordinated efforts across our government and partnerships among government, the private sector, and universities. Such coordination is particularly evident in the success of the Research Triangle region. Such partnerships are truly our bread and butter in RTP.
The fundamental investments in research, innovation, education and infrastructure that we have made over the past half century in North Carolina and the Research Triangle should not be taken for granted. These bedrocks of our local economy and the model of public-private partnership that underpins the business climate of our region is currently threatened by short-sighted policies.
I will continue to advocate for those policies that have made us strong and in favor of those that will enhance our competitiveness in the future. I appreciate all of the entrepreneurs who took the time to share their stories with me, and I want to sincerely thank First Flight for hosting this informative and exciting event.
