Sen. Charles Schumer visited our member the Orange County Business Accelerator (OCBA) in New Windsor, to speak about bipartisan legislation he has sponsored that would grant tax breaks to small firms hiring those unemployed for more than 60 days.

Sen. Schumer's visit underlines how a business incubator often becomes the focal point for entrepreneurial energy and policy development in any community.

OCBA posts news items like this as part of its blog. You can follow recent blog posts from several of our members in the lower left-hand column of the BIA/NYS website or in context of other interesting feeds here or in more expanded form here.

 Business incubators and technology parks would play a key role in anchoring regional innovation clusters across New York State, according to a vision laid out in a report published recently by the Public Policy Institute (PPI), the research affiliate of the Business Council of New York State, Inc.

Entitled Transcending the Hamster Cage: Unfettering New York's Static Innovation Economy, the PPI report is available for download here with supporting data here.

The report includes both PPI's own recommendations and a series of personal essays, including a very interesting one signed by Alex Brownstein of Integrated Tissue Dynamics, LLC. Alex is the former manager of the incubator program at the SUNY Albany East Campus, and one of the original incorporators of this association. 

Recent bill introductions in the House of interest to the business incubation community are:

• H.R. 4413, counterpart to S. 583, would authorize the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) to provide grants and loan guarantees for planning and construction of research parks;
• H.R. 3738 would authorize the Small Business Administration (SBA) to establish a program through which SBA would help capitalize funds that make early-stage investments in targeted technology industries.

The Obama administration has not endorsed either bill, but to view the administration's latest thoughts on the role of incubators in regional innovation clusters, see the recent Chicago speech of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez.

In the economic-development section of his 2010 State of the State Address, Gov. Paterson proposed a $25 million seed-capital investment fund oriented at commercializing university-developed innovations, following the general thrust of recommendations he received in the recently released report of the Task Force on Industry/Higher Education Partnerships.

Our association is on record as endorsing the need for increased seed-capital funding in the state. A list of currently active seed funds is here. The Governor also proposed implementation of a small-business revolving loan fund, following the recommendations of the second report he recently received, of the Small Business Task Force.

The Governor also outlined several other proposals of interest to the business-incubation community, including enhancement or addition of several innovation-oriented tax credits and continuation of the Innovation Economy Matching Grant Program in which our website/newsletter sponsor NYSTAR plays a key role. The status of the Governor's recommendations will be determined as part of the coming consideration by the Legislature of the Executive Budget, soon to be released. UPDATE (1/31): Our budget testimony is here.

For the second time in a month, a state task force reporting to Gov. Paterson has highlighted the importance of business incubation to a robust economic future for New York State. This time it was the Governor's Task Force on Diversifying the NYS Economy Through Industry/Higher Education Partnerships, created under Executive Order 19. 

The final report:

• recommends that the state adopt business incubation as a central component of economic-development policy (one of our association's long-time policy recommendations);
• asks universities to align their practices to provide a range of commercialization support including incubators that are fully integrated with additional assets such as: business training for faculty and graduate students; entrepreneurs in residence; internal funds to launch new ventures; and alumni networks of potential executives, investors, and managers;
• identifies the percentage of university-incubated companies graduating to later rounds of investment funding as a key metric of success to be tracked by the state;
• notes our association's testimony and submitted white paper (available on request), and adopts clearly our own view that business incubation is about more than simply provision of shared space, and that value-added services such as business assistance and mentoring must be funded;
• highlights as a model of integrated commercialization services High Tech Rochester, whose Lennox Tech Enterprise Center is a valued member of our association;
• recommends additional state support — matched by private investment, and privately managed — for seed-stage investment (a topic on which the association is now on record).

The full task force report is available for download on the Governor's website, and the press conference video is here. The earlier report referred to above was of the Small Business Task Force, which also highlighted incubation.

The Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee of the U.S. Senate recently held hearings on the role of science or research parks in job creation through innovation. Among those testifying at the Senate hearing were:

• John Fernandez, administrator of the U.S. EDA (testimony here and attached below as a pdf);
• Charles Wessner, director of the National Research Council Program on Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which recently published a study of research-park best practices;
• Brian Darmody, president of the Association of University of Research Parks, whose testimony is linked here;
• Jonathan Sallet, co-author of a study on regional innovation clusters published by the Center for American Progress;
• Anthony Townsend, research director of the Technology Horizons Program at the Institute for the Future, whose testimony is linked here.

The hearing may be related in some way to the re-introduction in this Congress of a bill (S. 583) that would authorize the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) to support science-park development with new capacity for grants and loan guarantees. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is a cosponsor of that measure. 

For a quick look at how certain research parks in NYS are linked to our membership, see our list here.

"Development or enhancement of 7-10 technology incubators throughout the State" is one of the recommendations of the Final Report of the state's Small Business Task Force. The report was commissioned by Gov. Paterson and was received by him on Dec. 1st.

The report emphasizes our own view that to be fully effective, business incubators must provide connections to sources of seed-stage capital, management coaching and talent development, and technical and marketing assistance. To achieve these goals, the Task Force projects a cost of $500,000 to $1 million per incubator per year, but also potential gains of up to 10,000 jobs over 5 to 7 years.

The report recommends no new budgetary appropriations, but rather reallocation of existing resources, including federal funding where feasible.

Available for download here, the report was based on the work of more than 60 stakeholders around the state, including three task force members who play important roles in our member incubators:

• Linda Dickerson Hartsock, who directs the NYSERDA-supported Center for Cleantech Entrepreneurship at our supporting member the Syracuse Technology Garden;
• James Senall, who directs our member the Lennox Tech Enterprise Center of High Tech Rochester (HTR also manages our member the Rochester BioVenture Center for the University of Rochester)
• F. Michael Tucker, the president of the Capital Region's Center for Economic Growth, whose Watervliet Innovation Center homeland-security incubator is a member.

If you would like to comment on the Small Business Task Force report, you may use our public forum here. We will forward appropriate comments to the state.

Both business incubators and science (or research) parks feature prominently in the "innovation agenda" recently announced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. In a press release accompanying her office's county-by-county analysis of the state's high-tech sector, Sen. Gillibrand highlights her cosponsorship of federal bills strengthening support for both incubators (S. 1662) and research parks (S. 1373). Both bills were previously mentioned on our website here (including our endorsement of S. 1662) and here (regarding a previous version of S. 1373 introduced in 2007). The membership of BIA/NYS includes both incubators and research parks.