The view of the state Capitol from the new offices of the Poultry Federation in Little Rock is a good one.
A few weeks earlier, the streets surrounding the Capitol had been filled with cars as the Arkansas Legislature conducted its longest session since the Great Depression. With the year’s legislative business having concluded, it was relatively quiet outside last week. Inside the federation headquarters, though, about 50 of the state’s business and education leaders had gathered to discuss the future of the state. They had come for the annual meeting of Accelerate Arkansas, a volunteer group working to build an infrastructure to allow the state to compete in the knowledge-based economy.
During the legislative session, Accelerate Arkansas chairman James Hendren and executive director Charisse Childers constantly reminded legislators that if Arkansas could reach the national average in per capita income, it would provide $2.4 billion in additional tax revenue each year without increasing taxes. Last Thursday, I was having lunch with a group of our brightest legislators when one of them told me: “What we need are gubernatorial candidates who are willing to go big. I think people are ready for that.”
In last week’s column, I outlined the need for the next governor and the next crop of legislators in 2015 to find the funds necessary to dramatically increase the number of college graduates. We rank ahead of only West Virginia in the percentage of adults with bachelor’s degrees. The other thing a new governor who wants to “go big” could do is this: Convince the Legislature to fully fund the programs being pushed by Accelerate Arkansas.
The organization has as its core strategies: supporting job-creating research; developing risk capital for knowledge-based businesses; encouraging entrepreneurship; increasing the education level of Arkansans in science, technology, engineering and math; and sustaining existing industry through technology advancements.
An investment of at least $30 million a year in these areas-just a fraction of what the state is investing to attract a steel mill to Osceola-could work wonders in bringing more high tech businesses to Arkansas. A study was done in 2004 by the Milken Institute to determine what was needed to create knowledge-based jobs. The report noted that the state “has been operating on the periphery of the knowledge-based economy.” While other states were investing heavily in efforts to create knowledge-based jobs, Arkansas was stuck in the 1960s and 1970s. That led to a number of acts approved in 2005 during Mike Huckabee’s final legislative session and in 2007 during Mike Beebe’s first session as governor.
“Overall, Arkansas’ economy is being bolstered by growth in highwage, typically knowledge-intensive industries,” Childers says. “Job gainsin high-wage industries in Arkansas from 2007-10 amounted to 4.2 percent or just more than 6,000 direct jobs. That generated total employment impacts of 11,800 jobs. During this same period, total private-industry jobs in Arkansas declined by 4.9 percent.”
An example of the kind of company Accelerate Arkansas wants to see more of is Vivione Biosciences, which is taking advantage of the commercially viable technologies being produced at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) near Pine Bluff. Vivione is involved in the areas of food safety and disease detection. Kevin Kuykendall, the company’s president and chief executive officer, was among the speakers at last week’s meeting.
Speaking of NCTR, a governor willing to “go big” would recognize that one of the greatest untapped economic development sites in Arkansas is the Bioplex, which consists of almost 1,500 acres of former Pine Bluff Arsenal land deeded in 2001 to the Economic Development Alliance of Jefferson County. The land is adjacent to NCTR, the FDA’s Arkansas Regional Laboratory and the U.S. Army arsenal. It’s a potential biomedical and high-tech hub just waiting on a “go-big” governor.
It’s not as if other states are sitting still. In fact, we’re falling further behind each year we fail to fully fund the projects pushed by Accelerate Arkansas. The Kansas Economic Growth Act of 2004 led to the creation of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, which provides the funding mechanism for state investment in the biosciences. Funding is estimated to reach more than $580 million during the next 15 years. The Georgia Research Alliance was established in 1989 with an initialinvestment of $350 million by the state. It has resulted in $2.6 billion in federal and private investments since then. Oklahoma’s Innovation to Enterprise organization has invested more than $38 million in startup companies, resulting in $600 million in private investment and capital.
A report on Arkansas’ efforts, completed last year by the Battelle Technology Partnershp Practice, noted that the state needs sustainable funding mechanisms that will provide adequate and predictable resources for its knowledge-based initiatives. Venture capital is sorely lacking.
As I listened to the speakers at the Accelerate Arkansas annual meeting last week, I thought about the current crop of gubernatorial candidates for 2014. I now ask myself this question: “Who’s willing to go big?” -
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Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 05/22/2013