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High On Technology
The Connecticut Technology Council's Laura Kent has seen the future.
Now she wants to help Connecticut get there
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Business New Haven
9/8/1997
By: BNH
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Since its founding in 1994, Laura Kent has been executive director of the Connecticut Technology Council (CTC), which has since grown to more than 100 technology-based companies. Previously she worked for the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce.
What is CTC, and who does it encompass?
The Connecticut Technology Council is a privately funded industry association for technology-based businesses and universities. We act as an advocacy on issues that are important to the technology community, both in the private sector and academia.
Whose idea was it?
It was an outgrowth of a small group of technology folks in the Hartford area that quickly broadened with a focus group of executives from around the state representing universities, different-sized companies and different regions, which came together around the idea of forming a pure organization for technology people. We all know that technology is increasingly what drives the economy of the world, the country and the state, yet at the time there was no place for folks to meet each other and do business with each other. So it quickly grew from a small handful of people in Hartford to a statewide group. We formed with 11 people and we have well over 100 now.
Explain how your May report, 'The Role of Technology in the Connecticut Economy,' was created and what it found.
As we looked around we could see examples of small, medium and large technology companies all around us. We knew that Connecticut had a lot of technology businesses, and yet there was no way to describe what we had. The idea was to do an analysis of the state to find out where we stood in terms of being a technology state, or not. So with the support of our funding partners - Advest, Price-Waterhouse and the NASDAQ stock exchange - we set forth to do this. The interesting thing was that many research projects are frequently framed to deliver the results one wants to hear. We could have done that by [manipulating] how we defined 'technology.' But we did the interesting thing by developing our own definition for this study. We looked at similar studies across the country and how they defined technology. And we basically picked a consensus definition: If an industry was considered a 'technology' industry in multiple studies, we included it in our definition - even if the state had no presence in that area, such as oil and gas refining. That allowed us to gather data and compare ourselves to other states.
What did you find?
The results were surprising and very exciting to us. The percentage of our workforce employed with technology companies was the highest in the country. We didn't expect this.
So why doesn't Connecticut have a reputation as a 'technology state'?
Connecticut's technology industry is very diverse. We are not known for one thing, the way you can take Silicon Valley and [identify it with] software, or San Diego with biotechnology. That's one reason. Second, Connecticut has been dominated by very large industries with very large employers - insurance, defense, financial services. Economically it has been a very vertically organized state, where people went to work in one industry, and perhaps one company, and stayed there for their entire professional careers. The technology landscape is quite different: It's characterized by smaller size and great mobility of people. So we've been in a period of transition from focusing on our large employers to looking at smaller and mid-sized employers and the contributions they make in the new economy. Connecticut hasn't had a very clear image of who it is for a very long time. If you were to travel outside of the state and ask people 'What do you think of when you think of Connecticut?' they'd say it's an insurance state, or a defense state, or where Yale is, or where a lot of rich people live.
Your report said that most growth between 1990 and '96 in Connecticut was in software and computers. Biotech and pharmaceuticals were relatively slower to grow. Should that change, and if so what developments will change it?
To some extent we reflect national trends, and software and computers is the fastest-growing industry in the country. And it's no different in Connecticut.
Is that likely to continue?
There are serious constraints to that growth, and extent to which Connecticut, New England and the United States address those constraints will determine the extent to which that growth continues - namely the critical labor-force shortage.
How bad is that shortage?
The Information Technology Association of America reported that in mid- to large-sized companies alone, there are 190,000 job openings for software and information-technology employees. That does not account for small companies, academic people or state and local government needs. You have a phenomenal number of jobs in this area and there simply is not the workforce to fill them. At the same time the number of graduates with computer and information-technology degrees has dropped by 40 percent over the last ten years. Meanwhile other countries have been investing a great deal in workforce training, countries like India and Ireland. If software companies cannot find the people they need in the U.S., they will have to create this industry abroad to fill those positions.
Is that a function of students making poor choice, or colleges missing the boat in terms of curricula?
That's a tough one. One of things we have not done in this country is to push science education as we should have. We're starting to do that, to say to students, 'Are you aware of the opportunities that exist in math and science in Connecticut?' Until we let our students know that there are terrific career opportunities in this area, we can't be wildly surprised if students don't go into these fields.
Are the resources to help incubate new technology companies available in Connecticut. The Hartford Courant just ran a story saying there were practically no effective technology incubators in the state.
We certainly have the resources to grow these technology companies. We have done it and done it very well. You can't necessarily draw a direct correlation between the success of incubators and the success of home-based technology companies.
So what does one need to have to grow a successful technology business?
You have to have good ideas, you have to have money, and you gotta have people. Plus, you have to have an environment that wants to see these technology companies grow - otherwise, they'll go elsewhere. You gotta love 'em and you've gotta believe in them. This is the future of our state.
What is the role and what should be the role of state government in helping the technology sector grow in Connecticut?
State government has got to let the technology community know that it cares about who they are, what they're doing, and support them, because they really are the industry of the future. That can take lots of different forms. But to be attentive to the technology companies and what their needs are is real important. These including gearing up the educational and retraining opportunities for people in the software industry is one way it can happen. It can happen through legislative activity to support and encourage R&D within individual companies.
Your report said that Connecticut was 33rd in the amount of R&D that was publicly funded. Does that mean we're not putting our money where our mouths are?
Publicly funded can also mean money coming from the federal government. And the federal government is the major funder of research in the country, obviously, and with two major research universities [Yale and the University of Connecticut] we probably get less federal funding than other states do. We do not have a national lab in the state.
Connecticut has a lot of small and mid-sized technology companies...
It's got a lot of big ones, too.
Okay. But do small and mid-sized companies do as well in attracting federal help?
You have the SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] program, which is designed for small companies. That's a very successful federal program, and Connecticut companies have been very successful in winning those research contracts.
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