St. Louis economic gurus bullish on Biotech
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
06.01.2009 5:18 am
By Steve Giegerich
JobWatch was there when a host of local business and community leaders gathered Thursday afternoon in the auditorium at the Danforth Plant and Science Center for a "conversation" on "Ag Biotech and the Growth Potential for Our Workforce in St. Louis."
In layman's terms: Bio-technology might well be our economic ticket out of the recession and the industry that returns St. Louis to its glory days.
Given the venue, the endorsement of that hypothesis by the seminar's three panelists -- Denny Coleman, president and CEO of the St. Louis County Economic Council, J. Joseph Schlafly a senior vice president and director at Stifel, Nicolaus & Company and Sarah Perkins, the vice president for academic affairs at St. Louis Community College -- was not unexpected.
Schlafly likened Biotech's potential for creating jobs to the automobile industry's supply chain.
Every crop nutrient or other Biotech product that emerges from the ongoing technology at the research center, he predicted, has the potential to generate an additional 2-1/2 jobs throughout the region.
And St. Louis Community College, with an affiliated campus in the Bio-Research and Development Growth Park (BrdgPark) slated to open on the Danforth's St. Louis County complex next month, is poised to train the workers -- including displaced employees from the local manufacturing sector -- to fill those positions.
Is there a place for the blue-collar worker in the Biotech industry?
Absolutely, said Schlafly.
Will Biotech stem the hemorrhaging of local jobs?
It depends, the panelists said, on the willingness of venture capitalists and other revenue sources to launch Biotech in these parts into the stratosphere occupied by the acknowledged industry leaders: California, North Carolina and Massachusetts.
