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More than 400 elected officials and business leaders on Monday hailed the opening of the newest Oakland University INCubator, in Sterling Heights, a facility designed to nurture new businesses and grow hundreds of jobs.
A joint venture between Macomb County and Oakland University, the business incubator, located in the heart of the county's military-industrial corridor, could lure high-tech entrepreneurs to the county.
“We will foster investment and create jobs throughout this county,” said OU President Gary Russi.
By 2015, officials estimate the INCubator, funded with state and federal dollars, could generate 55 new companies and 600 new jobs. The facility is surrounded by a state-certified SmartZone, created by Sterling Heights officials, that offers special tax incentives for companies and could eventually grow to several square miles.
The incubator is located in a former school bus seat factory, adjacent to the Sterling Ponds shopping center at 15 Mile Road and Van Dyke, and consists of a nine-acre campus that includes the anchor tenant Rave Computer.
Rave is a high-tech firm that does business mostly with the Pentagon and is ready to share technology ideas with fledgling companies that participate in the INCubator process. CEO Rick Darter said that Rave will help companies “leapfrog ahead of the usual entrepreneurial process.”
The INCubator will focus on companies with a niche in advanced manufacturing and defense industries. But it will also seek firms in the emerging sectors of alternative energy, life sciences and information technology.
The first eight companies setting up shop in the INCubator facility are firms with new products that range from fire suppression systems to protective jackets for military troops to computer-aided-design software.
To help start-up companies blossom, the INCubator will provide guidance and business solutions in a number of ways.
The facility houses newborn businesses over a 2- to 5-year period, providing offices, research facilities or laboratories. During that time, the firms are assisted with market research, a business plan and capital investment. Across the nation, 90 percent of incubator firms survive past five years and nearly all located in the immediate area once they grow out of their nesting status.
Each client is linked to a “kitchen cabinet” advisory board of working and retired business executives who act as mentors. OU faculty and student-interns lend a hand until the company is ready to graduate to its own facility. One feature is a crescent-shaped room, the “collaboratory,” outfitted with computer laptops and other technology where participants will share ideas.
Partners who have donated $45,000 and pledged continuing support range from Macomb Community College to General Dynamics Land Systems to the O’Reilly Rancilio law firm.
U.S. Rep. Sander Levin told the crowd on hand for Monday’s ceremonies that he was surprised and pleased at how much progress has been made simply by supplying about $600,000 in federal ‘seed money.’
“If anybody doubts the value of (congressional) earmarking, come here and look at what has been done,” said the Royal Oak Democrat, who represents most of Macomb County. “I think what this is, is not only an incubator, but a generator.”
U.S. Rep. Candice Miller said another $100,000 in federal money for the incubator, one of about 15 similar facilities across the state, is in the congressional pipeline. The Harrison Township Republican has worked in a bipartisan fashion with Levin, convinced that federal funding will pay big dividends. Miller said the term incubator is a perfect label to describe the nurturing process that will be accomplished at the new facility.
“When I think of an incubator, I think of a newborn child placed in an incubator to grow and strengthen and become prepared to meet all the challenges they’re going to face in this world,” she said. Oakland University, which established its own business incubator in 2006, agreed to act as a partner with Macomb County last year.
For more information about the incubator, log onto oakland. edu/macombouinc.
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