1012 Corridor

Nearly a decade ago, a rather ambitious plan called Vision 2020 concluded Louisianans could no longer sit back and expect cheap labor, natural resources and a sunny climate to do the hard work of cultivating the economy.

It was the 21st Century, and the authors surmised the state was going to have to get with something called a Knowledge Economy to survive.

That meant wooing firms that are into technology. Firms that thrive on innovation. Firms that Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Lester Thurow describes as “not just creating the next big industries; they are going to change how we do everything.”

No easy task, given the state’s poor rankings in education, ethics, infrastructure, workforce, taxes and venture capital⎯all of the traits needed to charm such companies.

Fast-forward to 2008. Louisiana now ranks third in the nation for feature film production. It offers tax credits to companies involved in motion pictures, digital interactive, media, sound recording and research and development. The Louisiana Optical Network Initiative links research universities to the National LambdaRail, an optical fiber infrastructure that lets researchers work collaboratively. The governor is tackling workforce development.

Even so, the National Science Foundation still puts Louisiana in the bottom half of most indicators of a thriving knowledge-based economy or the conditions necessary to attract.

“I think we’re making good progress,” says Charles D’Agostino, executive director of the Louisiana Business & Technology Center in Baton Rouge. “But we still have a long way to go.”

D’Agostino insists greater strides are being made along the corridor, where economic development authorities now give priority to home growing knowledge-based firms rather than recruiting them and many university researchers develop products, services or advanced technology that can be sold in the marketplace. Tax incentives have improved to a point. But such companies still face challenges when it comes to finding angel or venture capital to fund a start-up or highly trained employees to put to work.

Lafayette is one success story. The Miliken Institute recently ranked the city 15th nationwide for high-tech GDP growth, and Southern Business & Development Magazine pegged it as one of the ten best cities in the south for the creative class. In 2006, the National Policy Research Council picked it as the 22nd best midsize city in the nation for entrepreneurs.

Lafayette Economic Development Authority Gregg Gothreaux says it’s taken an intensive strategy to build the city’s knowledge-based industry. Lafayette Utilities System’s fiber network, the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise and LONI were vital. “Over the course of the last eight years, we’ve begun to look for areas in which we can lead the world, in essence,” Gothreaux says. “That’s where the idea of LITE came into being, as well as the concept for Consolidated Government’s fiber-to-premise initiative, LONI and the various university institutes. Those thought processes came together as a platform for what today we view as a strategic plan that consciously strives to expand the knowledge economy.”

The rest of the corridor is attracting knowledge-based firms as well, specializing in everything from film production to underwater robotics. Here are the stories of five such companies.

Lights, camera, action!

Firm: digitalFX, Baton Rouge

Brains: Greg Milneck

Business: A full-service independent production and post-production studio specializing in commercial spots, 3D animations and now the only 4K high-definition filming in Louisiana.

Hot projects: Animation for The History Channel and National Geographic; visual effects for feature films like “My Mom’s New Boyfriend” (starring Meg Ryan and Antonio Banderas) and “Blonde Ambition” (starring Jessica Simpson).

Beginnings: Milneck’s dad was a photographer, so Milneck grew up spending a lot of time in the darkroom. But motion photography came to be his true love⎯first at Baton Rouge High School, then later shooting sports for TigerVision. In 1982, he bought The Video Company and started producing television commercials and later, special effects. In July 1995, it became digitalFX.

Why the corridor? When Milneck started out, there were few local production firms. While tax credits have drawn others into the business, Louisiana now ranks third in the nation for feature film work, so there’s plenty to go ’round. Mostly, though, it’s because Baton Rouge is Milneck’s home.

Hassles: Milneck says it’s always tough to find people who are skilled in the film industry. Even so, all but one of his 10 full-time employees is a corridor native. “I look for the top artists and then train them in this field,” he says. “It’s easy to teach these skills to someone with talent.”

As for the future: The move to HD requires a complete retooling of the digitalFX facilities. The firm already has four edit suites, five visual effects suites, an audio post, a production studio and other services, but Milneck says he’s prepping for a major technological and staffing expansion.

One of a kind

Firm: InfiniEdge Software, Prairieville

Brains: Brad and Czarina Walker

Business: Designing customized software to run on computers or networks

Hot projects: Gulf Coast Event Services, LA Safe Drinking Water Program, Entergy SMART system

Beginnings: Czarina started designing custom software more than 12 years ago while studying pre-med at LSU; her first office was a closet in her home (then called Custom Database Solutions). Brad traveled the country installing hardware in new corporate offices. They decided to expand Czarina’s business. Brad runs the business and R&D side; Czarina manages the development teams. “Every morning, we know people around the world are turning on their computers, getting coffee and using software we’ve written,” Czarina says. “That’s amazing.”

Why the corridor? Austin. Boston. Silicon Valley. Brad and Czarina know they could do what they do anywhere, but they want to do it in Prairieville. “Technically, we don’t have to be here,” Brad says. “But we have strong family ties and we don’t want to leave them behind. That’s the thing about Louisiana.”

Hassles: Location, location, location. Since leaving Czarina’s original home office, InfiniEdge has been on the move because it keeps outgrowing spaces. The company, which now has 30 employees, is presently based a large tract of land along Easley Melancon Road off Highway 73. Like many companies, InfiniEdge experiences labor issues that come with hiring skilled staff, further compounded by the housing prices in Ascension Parish. InfiniEdge still offers above-the-national-average pay and relies on team building (think laser tag outings and cookouts) to attract and keep the best in the industry.

As for the future: InfiniEdge Software broke ground on a technology park that includes the first of several 6,000-square-foot buildings with a 2-gig bandwidth. This first building will house InfiniEdge Software until their eventual 12,000-square-foot building complete with training facility and larger data center is built. Who will inhabit this new park? They’re looking for like-minded tenants. “Austin has become a hub because of all the tech companies there,” Brad says. “We’re trying to create a hub here to help cultivate additional technology resources in our area.”

The underwater detective

Firm: SeaTrepid, Robert

Brains: Bob Christ

Business: Underwater robotics

Hot projects: Cave surveys for the National Geographic Society in the Northern Yucatan; investigated a B-29 wreck in Lake Mead and the 1929 disappearance of a couple in Washington State for the Discovery Channel; looking for Nessie in Loch Ness with the Academy of Applied Science; first internal wreck survey of USS Arizona with National Park Service; internal survey of downed spy craft for the Swedish navy.

Beginnings: After helping his father catalogue World War II wreck sites in the Gulf, Christ went to work for Oceaneering, a sub-sea engineering company in Morgan City. He started a small robotics firm, sold it, then opened SeaTrepid in Pottstown, Penn. Says Christ: “After the storms, so much of my work was down here that I decided to move the company lock, stock and barrel.” SeaTrepid tracked an oil spill off the coast of Texas, and helped assess damage to some of the 118 platforms that turned over in the Gulf of Mexico.

Why the corridor? SeaTrepid’s corporate headquarters is a compound once owned by a French Quarter leather dealer, complete with bunkhouse, lake and a three-phase fiber connection. It’s a centrally located staging area far enough away from the hurricane danger zone but close enough to the New Orleans airport and the coast. Nearby is a university, a plethora of machine shops and the Shell Oil Robert Training & Conference Center. More importantly, Christ says, Robert “is a really cool place to be.” He’s convinced the corridor is poised to become “the next Silicon Valley.”

Hassels: None so far. SeaTrepid has had to import some of its higher-level robotics engineers, but has found most of its success in home-growing its workers. One senior operator was once a car mechanic in New Orleans; another employee was a music major at LSU.

Windward, ho!

Firm: Windward Inc., Slidell

Brains: Glenn O’Rourke

Business: Custom engineering for defense, oilfield and other industries

Hot projects: Marine Corps Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle, Abrams Battle Tank, F-14 Tomcat Fighter

Beginnings: O’Rourke, a Michigan native, came to Louisiana to work with Textron Marine & Land Systems in 1994. Five years later, new management wanted to get rid of that particular operation, and O’Rourke started the one-man Windward Consulting. The contracts kept rolling in, and the firm now has 45 employees and just moved into a 20,000-square-foot facility.

Why the corridor? O’Rourke had the chance to return to Michigan but turned it down because he didn’t want to leave. From a business standpoint, however, only a proximity to the oil and gas industry keeps him on the corridor. Says O’Rourke: “Our goal is to have one foot in defense, and one foot in oil and gas.”

Hassles: “It seems as though there’s not a plethora of manufacturing talent here, so we’re currently doing a lot of recruiting out of state to bring people in,” O’Rourke says. “We do precision manufacturing, and what we’ve found is there’s not a good knowledge base in this area.” But even recruiting in hard-hit manufacturing areas like Ohio, Illinois and Michigan has proven challenging. The housing market makes potential employees reluctant to sell their homes.

As for the future: Three-fourths of Windward’s business is in defense; the rest, oil and gas. Look for O’Rourke to balance that ratio. “With the situation such as it is for oil, there’s obviously a lot of money out there,” he says. “We think there’s very good growth potential in tool development and exploration.”

Apex Innovations

Firm: Apex Innovations, Lafayette

Brains: Marianne Bourgeois, Brian White

Business: Online medical equipment training

Hot projects: imPulse ECG competency series; Hemispheres stroke competency series.

Beginnings: As an ER nurse, Marianne created simple cheat cheats for herself with a Sharpie and a sheet protector. Apex uses the same principle, except that students learn to read an ECG on a realistic three-dimensional beating heart and click on leads to move them to the appropriate places on a virtual human body. The firm began in 2003 and is now used worldwide.

Why the corridor? Marianne graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and worked in the emergency room setting for 25 years. With the arrival of the fiber loop and LITE, Marianne and Brian are convinced Lafayette’s high-tech industry is going to boom and they want to be in the midst of it.

Hassles: Finding local people with clinical and technical talent to build complicated interactive medical course material.

As for the future: “In today’s market, we are seeing an incredible amount of staff shortages, making it difficult to get even mandatory education done,” Marianne says. “Online education accomplishes this in a consistent, cost-effective, always-available manner.” In June, the company will release a stroke competency course loaded with 3D graphics and unique media elements. Brian says the firm is branching out, creating online courses for non-medical industries. Says he: “We have enough projects in the pipe to keep us going for a very long time.”