Jedco looks at how to incubate more technology businesses

OFFICIALS FROM JEFFERSON Parish Economic Development Commission plan to fly to Austin this week to tour the incubator that helped transform the Texas city into a technology hot spot.

Jedco Director Scott Adams wants to mimic Austin's success in Jefferson Parish, where the group is spearheading

Jedco approved the plan in March and die parish council will vote on the measure May 17.

Economic development leaders see the proposed tech park arid incubator as a way to attract and grow high-paying jobs in a region slow in creating white-collar jobs.

"I think it is going to create the potential for a better middle class than what we have now," Adams says. "There is not enough reliability in the (oil) industry and there isn't enough wealth in the tourism industry."

Adams and Jedco staff will tour the 11-year-old Austin Technology Institute, which is credited with creating 1,900 jobs and graduating 50 companies that I have produced revenue exceeding $700 million. ATI was started under the auspices of the University of Texas.

Jedco staff are researching how to best implement plans outlined in Jefferson Edge. That document calls for the tech park to be a partnership among Jedco, the parish arid private companies with possible affiliation with at least one institute of higher learning.

The incubator would be housed inside the technology park to bring growing technology companies and established tenants together.

Jedco also is studying sites for the park, which would need at least 30 acres of vacant land. Possible locations include noise abatement zones near New Orleans International Airport, Adams says.

Jedco is considering the east batik because the fiber-optic lines needed for high-speed data transmission follow Interstate 10. The West Bank doesn't have the fiber-optic network needed yet, Adams says.

Developers would like to select a site within two years and have the park completed within the next five years. However, there are no guarantees that the center will get off the ground that soon. Jedco is depending on private companies to fund most of the project and does not have any estimates for how much it will cost. The group is working out financial estimates for the deal and will determine how much public money could be used to fund it.

Those in the technology industry say the New Orleans area needs more hightech incubators. The University of New Orleans Technology Enterprise Center, housed at 1600 Canal St., is the only incubator devoted solely to tech start-ups, says Joe Grace, president of the Louisiana

Technology Council.

The LTC runs the incubator, which is home to more than 15 start-ups. The center provides reduced rent for office space, which includes phones, copiers and support staff. Tech company start-ups tend to have trouble getting business loans because they only have their intellectual property to bank on. Subsidized rent lets them focus on drumming up business.

More incubators in the region would boost the number of technology success stories, Grace says.

"For every one or two (tech companies) that we are hearing about, there are 10 or 15 that are simmering somewhere," Grace says.

It is critical for start-ups to get strong guidance in writing business plans and managing their companies - something offered within an incubator, Grace says.

Barry LeBlanc, president of two companies in the UNO incubator, Advanced Scanning LTD. and St. Charles Pharmaceuticals Inc., says there is a dire need for new technology incubators in the region. While he has been able to grow Advanced Scanning, which manufactures microscopes used to diagnose eye disease, he is limited at the UNO center. The building is not designed for building advanced equipment, he says; dust particles are a constant problem when producing sensitive microscopes.

LeBlanc says he is also having trouble attracting venture capital for medical research company St. Charles Pharmaceuticals. He says he needs an incubator with laboratory space.