Where tobacco once grew, major pharmaceutical companies now do research on everything from Alzheimer's disease to lung cancer. And where cows once grazed, there are now row after row of full parking decks.
Research Triangle Park, between Chapel Hill and Raleigh, is home to 140 technology- and research-oriented companies.
But 50 years ago, the sprawling 7,000-acre development existed only in the minds of a few ambitious state businessmen and academics. It took the support of two governors, the foresight of several businessmen and the intellectual resources of the area's three universities to get RTP where it is today.
Jamie Nunnelly, RTP communications director, said that despite the existence of three doctoral research universities -- Duke University, N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill -- industries were slow to take advantage of academic resources.
"Industry and the universities didn't often collaborate," Nunnelly said.
At the same time, a handful of people across the state began tinkering with the idea of a research center that would forge cooperation between research organizations from industrial fields and N.C. universities.
The idea began to develop under the leadership of then-N.C. Gov. Luther Hodges, area businessman Romeo Guest and financial investor Karl Robbins, who in 1957 supplied the funds to purchase the park's first 3,559 acres.
In 1959, Hodges announced the creation of the nonprofit Research Triangle Foundation and continued to purchase land.
The park developed slowly in the early 1960s. An important turning point was when President John F. Kennedy pushed through several federal grants for the park, said UNC political science Professor Thad Beyle. Then-Gov. Terry Sanford had helped boost Kennedy's support in the South.
In addition to increased revenue, the development of RTP has led to many other changes in the area, among them an influx of people.
"This state used to have a brain drain," Nunnelly said. "But now as a result of having a research park, we've been able to have the opposite effect.
"We are now importing great minds into the state."
But despite the increased numbers of non-native North Carolinians who work in RTP, Nunnelly estimates that the majority of its 42,000 full-time employees still come from inside the state to work at one of the companies there.
Easy travel and access to the airport are just two of the multiple reasons companies cite for moving into RTP.
"The high quality of life, good schools, lower cost of living than in other high-tech areas -- these are all the kinds of things you want to offer a potential employee," said Mary Anne Rhyne, spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, which employs 5,000 people in RTP.
John Lucy, spokesman for IBM in the Triangle area, said the area's facilities attracted his business to RTP decades ago. "In the mid-1960s, we were looking for availability of land, a good business climate and a good place for employees to live," he said. "Research Triangle had all that, and there was a great relationship between the three universities and the government and business community."
Nunnelly said cooperation with area universities is an important factor in company research. Contract research and clinical labs that companies are interested in are done at the universities, and many graduate students and professors work with RTP employees.
Nunnelly said the relationship between the park and the universities is one that continues to grow, as does RTP itself, despite the recent downturn in both the state and national economy.
"We've been hurt, but things aren't as bad as they could have been," Nunnelly said. "For that we should be thankful to the people who planned and diversified this park."
To remain competitive with other high-tech regions throughout the country and world, Nunnelly said, the RTP Foundation continues to make efforts to attract new companies to the park
The passage of the economic incentive bill in the N.C. Senate also might bring in more business to RTP. "A lot of what we do doesn't necessarily need to rely on incentives," Nunnelly said. "So (the bill) is important for Research Triangle Park but probably more important for other parts of North Carolina."
But Nunnelly emphasized that RTP is still a work in progress, no matter how little or how much the bill impacts it.
"Even after 43 years we're not full yet; we still have 1,200 acres left to develop," Nunnelly said. "Research parks are long-term projects."
The Features Editor can be reached at features@unc.edu.
