Research Triangle Park - As Vibrant as Ever

It doesn't take a lot of digging to realize that Research Triangle Park (RTP) is always growing and evolving as a great place for business to locate.  That it is the leading and largest high technology research and science park in North America, certainly doesn't hurt.



Many changes have taken place over the years, and quite a few of them have been recent, including the announcement of a new CEO, Bob Geolas, and several new companies and expansions in recent months.  The Research Triangle Foundation keeps an up to date site announcing all such activity.

Founded in 1959, this 7,000-acre, namesake for the entire Triangle region is two miles wide and eight miles long, based in Durham with an extension now spilling into Wake County toward Cary and Morrisville.  Most of the businesses and employees working in the park are in the Durham portion which contributes to the nearly 100,000 people who commute into Durham to work every day.

Just four miles from Downtown Durham and encompassed on three sides by the City of Durham, RTP was originally named for its affiliation with three major research universities: Duke University in Durham, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University in Raleigh. This part of Durham is approximately equidistant between Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

Originally envisioned by UNC’s Howard W. Odum and fostered by the administration of Durham native Governor William Umstead, the Park was developed by the Research Triangle Foundation in 1959 and now includes over 170 companies, 42,000 full time employees, and 10,000 contract workers.
The three original universities are joined by Durham’s North Carolina Central University (located less than two miles from RTP) playing a major role as home to the Biomanufacturing Research Institute & Technology Enterprise (BRITE) Center for Excellence.

Today, RTP is surrounded by a variety of other Durham business and corporate parks populated by pharmaceutical, microelectronic, biotechnology, telecommunications, and textile businesses to name a few.  Research Triangle Park is not a city, but it has a special Durham postal substation—Research Triangle Park, NC 27709. It exists in a special county district, serviced by Durham utilities.

Start to Finish - Entrepreneurialism in Durham, NC

Imagine a community welcoming to people with ideas, passion and the desire to start a business; a place where when people hear the ideas of others they respond with “How can I help?” instead of “Good luck;” a place where even failure is ok as long as the road there is lined with integrity.

That place is Durham, NC.

Durham, a city with deep entrepreneurial roots, has been garnering national attention for its progressive and innovative nature for hundreds of years. Durham is home to Research Triangle Park (RTP), the largest high-tech research and science park in North America.  In addition, Downtown Durham is home to over 60 startup companies employing more than 500 people.

The startup culture is hardly new. Durham has always been a hotbed of entrepreneurialism - the Great American Indian Trading Path ran through here; a route that was an early manifestation of entrepreneurial activity.  In the 1860s, Washington Duke started what grew into the mega-giant American Tobacco Company from pocket change.  Businesses like Durham-based Cree and Quintiles grew from a handful of employees 25 years ago to their current status as multinational companies with thousands of employees.   

More recently, in 2011, Durham was the first stop on the US Small Business Administration’s national tour of roundtable discussions called Startup America: Reducing Barriers. In other words, entrepreneurism is an essential part of Durham’s DNA. 

With the startup landscape flourishing in Durham, the future looks brighter every day.  An influx of small business incubators and accelerators has drawn entrepreneurs to Durham from around the world, all of whom have a dream and the drive to succeed.  Organizations like JoyStick Labs, LaunchBox Digital and Bull City Forward, to name a few. 

Much of the success of these small businesses can be traced to organizations and programs that help entrepreneurs thrive.  The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Durham Inc. have hosted The Bull City Start-up Stampede, a competitive initiative matching start-up companies with free office space and technical assistance.  CED, the regional council for entrepreneurial development located in Downtown Durham also provides entrepreneurs with the necessary resources and tools to start and grow their businesses.  

Duke University recently launched a major campus-wide initiative in innovation and entrepreneurship led by Kimberly Jenkins.  A Duke alumna, Jenkins’ resume includes working with Microsoft’s Bill Gates back when it was a start-up company, leading the marketing department for Steve Jobs at NeXT, as well as stints advising companies such as Sun, Oracle and Cisco.  This effort will help keep bright graduates close by and further expand the societal impact of Duke innovations. 

Turns out, Durham is also a great place to be to work on stepping away from a business that has grown to great success, too.  Two of Durham’s entrepreneurs, Jess Eberdt and Doug Townsend, did exactly this and maneuvered away from the daily operations of their hugely successful business Parata Systems.  They started Tempus Durham, a firm that helps successful entrepreneurs do exactly as they have done, devise an exit strategy from a successful business to have freedom to pursue other things. 

Durham has myriad stories of dreams that became ideas that became realities that grew into great successes.  It’s really a city to be reckoned with when it comes to starting a business, routinely being named in the same breath as Silicon Valley.

Considering that more than 80% of relocating executives visit a location first before deciding to move their companies, the success of Durham as a visitor destination can only further encourage the natural evolution and current momentum that made Durham such a highly sought-after business climates in the U.S. 

Korean Ambassador in Durham Tomorrow

Durham is no stranger to hosting guests...roughly 6.3 million people visit this place annually.  Tomorrow, however, a special guest will drop in on the place where great things happen - The Korean Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Han Duk-soo.  He will be joined by Congressman Brad Miller, as well.

Durham has been selected to participate in the U.S.-Korea Partnership Tour. This tour is a national series of forums highlighting the importance of trade and investment between the United States and Korea, and the benefits and opportunities of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) for American jobs and U.S. economic growth.

Congressman Miller and Ambassador Han will be in Durham for a luncheon at the Research Triangle Park Headquarters with business leaders. For more information on the U.S.-Korea Partnership Tour, please visit their website.

Durham Companies Recognized

In 2010, Durham’s The King’s Daughters Inn was recognized as Green Plus’ Sustainable Enterprise of the Year in the national contest recognizing organizations for the examples they set in advancing triple bottom line sustainability. Can Durham claim the winning company two years in a row? It is possible with Durham's Counter Culture Coffee as a finalist for the 2011 award.

Also up for awards this year are Bull City Forward and The Scrap Exchange in the Green Plus Non-Profit or Social Enterprise of the Year category. Winners will be announced February 25 at the North Carolina Research Triangle Park Foundation headquarters in Durham.

In addition to these Green Plus finalists, Durham’s Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club was awarded the 2010 Model Diversity Campaign Award given by the United Way of the Greater Triangle. This award is given to a company that best effectively addresses the company’s diverse employee population.

These recognitions are just one more indication that Durham is home to an innovative and entrepreneurial community of businesses and citizens.

The Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau was the first organization of its type in the nation to be certified Green Plus and just the second in Durham.

The Latest Iteration of Being a Startup Hub

Durham has always been a hub for startups...even before 1865 when Washington Duke came home after the Civil War and started in the tobacco business.  Seems to have worked out for him since with that modest start, Durham proceeded to lead the industrial revolution in the south with both tobacco and textile empires thriving here for the century to follow.

Now, in some of the very same buildings that housed those former manufacturing giants, Durham is again expressing its entrepreneurial nature as a massive influx of creative and business minded people come here to get their ideas off the ground.

The last several years have seen the startup landscape flourish in Durham, and the future is looking more lush every day.  With the recent opening of Bull City Forward as an incubator for social enterprises, and the impending opening of American Underground as a similar environment for tech companies, Durham is fast-tracking its growth in this direction.  Click here for a recent article on the subject.  Even the local blog Bull City Rising now has an editorial series devoted to this subject and a new correspondent focused on this beat.

"To call it exciting is an understatement.  We've always been a technology and innovation hub--after all RTP started here in 1959--but now we're seeing opportunities for small operations to call Durham home in a new way," said Shelly Green, President and CEO of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau.  "The fact is that more than 80% of relocating executives come to Durham as visitors first and then decide to move here.  We're now seeing the natural evolution of that with a previous generation setting the stage for newcomers to get their concepts off the ground here.  Durham is a place where great things happen, and we're hoping these businesses will stay in Durham," she added.

BCF and AU are only part of the picture.  There is a startup subculture in Durham, a place that often wins accolades for various aspects of its population.  See a searchable database of those here.  A new website, http://www.downtowndurhamstartups.com/, sponsored by shoeboxed.com, is a great clearing house for information on new businesses getting underway in Durham, but also in the surrounding area.  Their blog can be seen here.

Pursuant to being attractive to a younger demographic, Durham has an exciting dining scene with more than three dozen nationally celebrated restaurants, bakeries and food trucks for near round the clock options.  There is even a website devoted entirely to coffee shops and bakeries that rates them based on various criteria.  There is also a fare-free bus, The Bull City Connector, that services downtown Durham as some immediately adjacent parts of town including Duke and North Carolina Central Universities.

A visit to the official website for Durham's marketing agency sums up the current culture pretty well, "Durham is a colorful, creative, and entrepreneurial community and is the proud home of Research Triangle Park, Duke and North Carolina Central universities."  Sounds like startup mecca.