Research Triangle Region, N.C. (January 13, 2014) – Charlotte-based energy services company Piedmont Natural Gas has joined the board of directors of the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster (RTCC), the initiative of business, government, academic and nonprofit leaders working to accelerate the region’s cleantech economy.

“Piedmont Natural Gas is a long-time partner of economic development and offers our cluster broad expertise and connections across the energy space,” said Lee Anne Nance, RTCC managing director and executive vice president of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, which created and manages the RTCC. “We are delighted they have stepped forward to help shape and steer the growth of the region’s cleantech cluster.”

George Baldwin, managing director of government relations and sustainability at Piedmont Natural Gas, said the company’s participation is a natural extension of its economic development efforts across North Carolina. The company serves 70 percent of the state, including some Research Triangle Region counties, and is a member of all of North Carolina’s economic development partnerships.

“Economic development is the lifeblood of a utility,” Baldwin said. “That’s what drives the growth of our customer base and keeps our company successful and growing.”

The company welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with cluster companies at the forefront of developing and deploying new technologies as well as working together on issues of competitiveness, he said.

“Workforce development is a challenge for all of us,” Baldwin said. “To the extent we can attract talented workers to North Carolina we’ll be able to pull from that pool. So that is a key area of interest for us.”

About Piedmont Natural Gas
Piedmont Natural Gas is an energy services company primarily engaged in the distribution of natural gas to more than 1 million residential, commercial, industrial and power generation customers in portions of North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, including customers served by municipalities who are wholesale customers. Its subsidiaries are invested in joint venture, energy-related businesses, including unregulated retail natural gas marketing, regulated interstate natural gas transportation and storage, and regulated intrastate natural gas transportation businesses. For more information, visit www.piedmontng.com.

About Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster
The Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster (RTCC) is an initiative of business, government, academic and nonprofit leaders working to accelerate the region’s cleantech economy through collaboration and partnerships that promote innovation and sector growth. The Research Triangle Regional Partnership (RTRP) formed and manages the RTCC with funding from industry board members ABB Inc., Cisco Systems, Duke Energy, Field2Base Inc., Itron Inc., Piedmont Natural Gas, Power Analytics Corp., PowerSecure International, RTI International, SAS, Schneider Electric, Sensus and Siemens and its members. RTRP is the public-private partnership that leads economic development strategy for the area within a 60-mile radius of the Raleigh-Durham International Airport and the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. For more information, visit www.researchtrianglecleantech.org.

# # #

Contacts:
Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster: Lee Anne Nance, (919) 334-4075, lnance@researchtriangle.org
Piedmont Natural Gas: David Trusty, (704) 731-4391, david.trusty@piedmontng.com

Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster defines 'era of cleantech' opportunity at annual meeting

Research Triangle Region, N.C. (January 16, 2014) – The Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster (RTCC) announced the newest wave of innovation-based job growth is underway during its inaugural annual meeting held Tuesday at the Jim Hunt Library at N.C. State University. This innovative collaboration of business, government and academic research focuses on positioning the Research Triangle Region as a world-leading hub in the rapidly growing markets of smart energy, smart water and advanced transportation. The meeting brought together over 150 industry leaders to discuss the future of clean technology in the Triangle and beyond, one day ahead of President Barack Obama’s announcement that Raleigh was chosen as the site of the Next Generation Power Electronics Institute.

The U.S Department of Energy’s choice of NCSU’s Centennial Campus as home for an initiative to accelerate the nation's economy recognizes the Research Triangle Region’s emerging role as a hub of cleantech research, technology and innovation. The $70 million that will be awarded to 18 businesses and seven universities across the country will create next-generation products that will make power grids more efficient. The RTCC wrote a letter of support for the Institute on behalf of NCSU’s FREEDM Systems Center, which submitted the proposal.

The RTCC is well-positioned to extend the reach of the newly formed Institute, having organized a cluster of companies, academic programs and nonprofit support organizations in the cleantech space one year ago. “These technologies represent the ‘third wave’ of innovation-based job growth in this region that began two generations ago with IT and continued during the 1980s and 1990s with biotech,” said Lee Anne Nance, managing director of the RTCC and executive vice president of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership (RTRP), which manages the Cluster. “We believe the coming decades will be remembered here as the ‘era of cleantech.’”

Charles Hayes, president of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, addressed the cleantech sector's increasing importance as a long-term economic engine for the greater Triangle area. "Our job," noted Hayes, "is to attract business investment that will drive job growth. The membership growth of the RTCC in its first full year is a proxy for the cleantech sector potential to drive regional economic development." Hayes added, "We believe this growth sector will have a regional economic impact on par with what we have experienced with tech and biotech, two industries that have benefitted from the region's rich legacy of collaboration, over the past twenty years."

A previously announced commissioned study completed in partnership with RTI International, also a founding member of the RTCC board of directors, identified 169 cleantech firms with 187 locations operating in the 13-county region. Representing an increasingly valuable segment of the region’s economy, RTCC member companies have publicly announced cleantech contracts valued at nearly a billion dollars during the last six months. 

Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business at Sensus, and RTCC's incoming vice chairman, Matt Zafuto echoed those thoughts, "I see tremendous continued revenue growth opportunity for Sensus and other companies within the cluster in the coming years. We chose to increase our involvement with the RTCC because it is clearly strengthening the cleantech ecosystem in the Triangle region and making companies in the sector stronger as they compete for contracts and talent."

According to ABB of North America Senior Vice President Allen Burchett, who closed Tuesday’s meeting, "There are one billion people in the world who do not have a working light bulb today. Due to population growth, that number is expected to grow to two billion by 2030. The market for energy equipment is trillions of dollars. The RTCC adds value for companies like ABB because it provides an objective, ongoing venue through which we can connect to the right solutions, the right partners and the right people."

"RTCC efforts have and will continue to help programs like ours attract the funding that enables world-leading research and development in engineering-driven sectors like cleantech," noted Dr. Louis Martin-Vega, dean of engineering at NCSU, in his remarks at the annual meeting. "The by-products of this funding are innovation and a skilled workforce that companies operating in the Triangle ecosystem increasingly can use to drive business."

###

About Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster
The Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster (RTCC) is an initiative of business, government, academic and nonprofit leaders working to accelerate the region’s cleantech economy through collaboration and partnerships that promote innovation and sector growth. The Research Triangle Regional Partnership (RTRP) formed and manages the RTCC with funding from industry board members ABB Inc., Cisco Systems, Duke Energy, Field2Base Inc., Itron Inc., Piedmont Natural Gas, Power Analytics Corp., PowerSecure International, RTI International, SAS, Schneider Electric, Sensus and Siemens and its members. RTRP is the public-private partnership that leads economic development strategy for the area within a 60-mile radius of the Raleigh-Durham International Airport and the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. For more information, visit www.researchtrianglecleantech.org.

“We’ve grown and evolved over the years. We believed we could get up and running more competitively and quickly here at Research Triangle Park than other locations around the world.”
-- Stephen Goldsmith, director of corporate affairs at Syngenta

Syngenta Biotechnology: Innovation That Feeds a Hungry Planet

Syngenta was one of the first biotechnology companies to establish a presence in Research Triangle Park (RTP) and remains one of its most dynamic. The company, based in Basil, Switzerland, arrived in RTP in 1984 to tap the region’s research universities and agricultural infrastructure.

“We’ve grown and evolved over the years,” says Stephen Goldsmith, director of corporate affairs at Syngenta. Much of Syngenta’s work at RTP, where it now employs 400 people, centers on discovery of drought resistant food crops. In 2011, it launched construction on 136,000 square-feet of greenhouse “growing chambers” off I-40 as part of an R&D strategy that is long-range and global in nature. “This is where we can carefully monitor and study how plants respond to various stimuli,” Goldsmith says of the $72 million facility, which can simulate the growing conditions of any farm in the world.

Improving the efficiency by which plants utilize moisture is imperative to the challenge of feeding the planet’s surging population on limited land and water resources. Moreover, as millions in the developing world adopt U.S.-style diets rich in animal protein, much of the world’s burgeoning demand for grains is being redirected from human to livestock consumption.

Syngenta officials considered locations in Asia, Europe and South America for its expanded ag-bio operations before selecting RTP. “We believed we could get up and running more competitively and quickly here at RTP than other locations around the world,” says Goldsmith. Syngenta also finds the Research Triangle Region a welcoming environment for its diverse international workforce. “We’ve got people who have come here from all over the world,” Goldsmith says. The company’s ability to recruit from a worldwide talent base is complemented by the rich inventory of skilled workers produced by universities here. “NC State [University] has long been an ag-bio leader, nationally and internationally recognized for its programs and projects in plant breeding and advanced genetics,” he adds. The company also works with Duke University and UNC, whose biostatistics, I/T and business graduates also bring the company critical skills-sets.

In July 2013, only months after completing its previous expansion, Syngenta unveiled plans to add another 150 R&D jobs at its Innovation Center in Research Triangle Park. It is investing $94 million there as it grows its crop protection and seed development operations. Syngenta officials considered locations in Iowa and Minnesota for the facility, but the Research Triangle Region’s moderate cost-of-living, attractive business environment and formidable talent pool again steered the company here. Once complete in 2016, the Innovation Center will explore the nutritional needs and external stresses of corn, soybean, cereal, rice, vegetable and sugar cane.

While Syngenta was the product of a 2000 merger of the agribusiness units of Novartis and AstraZeneca, its corporate roots extend to the founding of J.R. Geigy Ltd. in 1758. Today, Syngenta’s worldwide workforce totals 27,000 across operations in 90 countries.

May 22, 2014

Industry and community leaders will gain a perspective of the region's economy at the State of the Research Triangle Region event on May 22 at the Sheraton Imperial.  The Research Triangle Regional Partnership (RTRP), along with naming sponsors PNC and the Research Triangle Foundation, will present the annual event. This year the event will focus on the impact of higher education on the Triangle's economic growth and business trends. 

Registration/networking: 7:00 - 8:00am
Program: 8:00 - 10:00am

REGISTRATION OPENS APRIL 7, 2014

Sheraton Imperial Hotel & Convention Center
4700 Emperor Boulevard
Durham, NC 27703

Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorship opportunities are still available.
For more information, contact Emmit Owens at
919.334.4076 or eowens@researchtriangle.org

NAMING SPONSORS

PLATINUM SPONSORS

GOLD SPONSORS

SILVER SPONSORS

BRONZE SPONSORS
Bank of America
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices York Simpson Underwood Realty
Blue Cross Blue Shield
Campbell University
Piedmont Natural Gas

NETWORKING SPONSORS
_{^{Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP
MCNC}}

Impact of higher education focus of annual presentation

Research Triangle Region, NC (February 19, 2014) -- Industry and community leaders will gain a perspective of the region's economy at the State of the Research Triangle Region event on May 22 at the Sheraton Imperial. The Research Triangle Regional Partnership (RTRP), along with naming sponsors PNC and the Research Triangle Foundation, will present the annual event. This year the event will focus on the impact of higher education on the Triangle's economic growth and business trends.

This event, typically attended by more than 900 regional leaders, provides insight into the continuing growth of the region. Topics will include employment and job growth as well as new industries and evolving opportunities as the Triangle region continues to outperform other areas of the country.

PNC Regional President Paula Fryland noted that a key attraction of the area when the bank entered the region was the abundance of available talent. "Operating in a market with such extensive higher education assets provides access to talent and fuels strong economic growth for the region, creating value for our company and our shareholders."

"The university system and business leaders have a rich heritage of banding together to promote innovation and economic growth." said Bob Geolas, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation. "That partnership continues to make this region part of the global conversation about how an excellent higher education system has the power to transform lives and businesses." 

Charles Hayes, president and CEO of the RTRP connected the importance of higher education to regional businesses, "We work with a variety of entities to utilize the assets in this area to build new solutions, new industries, new jobs and new modes of thinking. That results in a strong, innovative regional economy that can compete against any in the world." 

Those interested in sponsoring or attending the State of the Research Triangle Region event should contact Emmit Owens eowens@researchtriangle.org or 919-334-4076.

About The Research Triangle Regional Partnership

The Research Triangle Regional Partnership leads economic development for the 15-county Research Triangle Region of North Carolina, comprised of Chatham, Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Granville, Harnett, Johnston, Lee, Moore, Nash, Orange, Person, Vance, Wake and Warren counties. RTRP comprises economic development agencies who work with the N.C. Department of Commerce and a wide range of partners to ensure the region remains economically competitive. For more information, visit www.researchtriangle.org.  For information on the State of the Region event, go to http://www.researchtriangle.org/2014SOR .

###

Media Contact:
Lee Anne Nance
lnance@researchtriangle.org
919.344.4075

February 26, 2014
The Friday Center, Chapel Hill, NC

The Clean Tech Summit is a partnership of the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Center for Sustainable Enterprise, Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster, Strata Solar, and the UNC Institute for the Environment

Event Info

Global Logistics Solutions Company Seeking 60 Drivers, As Service Activity Expands

Research Triangle Park, N.C. -- (March 3, 2014) – Longistics, a full-service provider of global logistics solutions, has announced that it is seeking to hire 60 professional truck drivers to support their addition of 30 over-the-road (OTR) teams by the spring of 2014. The company, located at 10900 World Trade Blvd. in Raleigh intends to hire in order to accommodate recent growth in business activity with its clients. Requirements for driver prospects include a class A commercial driver’s license, at least one year of OTR experience, a good motor vehicle record (MVR) and a clean criminal background.

Longistics, headquartered in Raleigh, N.C, provides trucking, warehousing and Foreign Trade Zone management operations. Focused on service, safety and security, Longistics is a certified ISO 9001:2008 provider, offering a highly specialized “Imperial Fleet” of skilled professional drivers dedicated to providing world-class service to customers. Longistics’ full complement of technologies includes supply chain visibility, satellite tracking, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), radio-frequency identification (RFID), a Web-based inventory tracking system and access to real-time data. In 1992, the Longistics International division debuted as part of a globalization strategy by the company to build a blueprint and a framework for expansion into the growing global logistics and supply chain environment. This process included adding warehousing and handling capabilities, and Longistics is now known as one of the nation’s foremost operators of Foreign Trade Zones at FTZ 93, located adjacent to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

All applicants are welcome to apply online by visiting http://longistics.com or by visiting in person at the company’s headquarters, located at 10900 World Trade Blvd in Raleigh. Longistics is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to a policy of non-discrimination in employment on any basis.

QUOTES:

“We are pleased to announce the hiring for these new positions, which reflect our company’s growth and commitment to providing the best logistics solutions possible to our clients,” said Pat Long, Longistics vice chairman and co-creator. “Our team is truly a family, and we are excited to welcome new members who seek great opportunities, consistent pay, an excellent benefits package and more.”

NEW MEDIA CONTENT:

Longistics on YouTube:
Longistics on Facebook:

ABOUT LONGISTICS:

Headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., Longistics provides trucking, warehousing and Foreign Trade Zone management operations. Focused on service, safety and security, Longistics is a certified ISO 9001:2008 provider, offering a highly specialized “Imperial Fleet” of skilled professional drivers dedicated to providing world-class service to customers. Longistics’ full complement of technologies includes supply chain visibility, satellite tracking, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), radio-frequency identification (RFID), a Web-based inventory tracking system and access to real-time data. In 1992, the Longistics International division debuted as part of a globalization strategy by the company to build a blueprint and a framework for expansion into the growing global logistics and supply chain environment. This process included adding warehousing and handling capabilities, and Longistics is now known as one of the nation’s foremost operators of Foreign Trade Zones at FTZ 93, located adjacent to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport. For more information, visit http://www.longistics.com.

Please join us for our
 2014 Ozone Forecast Season

Kick-off Luncheon

Thursday, April 17, 2014

12:00-1:30 PM

The Research Triangle Park Foundation

We're excited to host a panel discussion of
teleworking programs,
featuring

Cali Yost, Founder and CEO

Flex+Strategy Group/Work+Life Fit, Inc.

joined by

Robin Miller, Vice President of People Strategies

 Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina

  Kelly Caldwell, Vice President and Co-Founder

AK Environmental, LLC

Richard "Dick" Sloane, Assessor

Waste Reduction Partners

Adjunct Professor,

Durham Technical Community College

You'll receive a copy of Cali Yost's latest book,

TWEAK IT,

courtesy of GoTriangle!

Register Today

This event is free and sponsored by:

Contact Elaine Loyack for sponsorship opportunities for raffle prizes: elaine.loyack@ncdenr.gov 

Collaboration to Develop Non-GM, Ricin-Free Castor with Customizable Oil Content

Plants to be developed using DNE technology and novel transformation system

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (March 12, 2014) — Nova Synthetix and Precision BioSciences, Inc., today announced that they have initiated a joint research effort to generate non-GM, ricin-free castor plants using Precision’s Directed Nuclease Editor (DNE) technology in combination with Nova Synthetix’s proprietary plant transformation system. Scientists at Nova Synthetix and Precision also plan to utilize their joint capabilities to generate improved castor variants capable of producing user defined oil profiles for industrial, biofuel, and feed-directed applications. The companies believe that the successful development of this multi-year research effort will address a significant agricultural need and result in a castor plant that is safer and has far greater market utility.

The need to replace petroleum-derived materials with sustainable, non-polluting alternatives is driving the 2.1 mm Mt/$4B biobased polymers market. Castor oil is used in many applications, including biobased nylons, a 0.2 mm Mt market growing at >25%/Yr. Nova Synthetix has developed a non-GM strategy to eliminate castor seed toxin (ricin) gene expression enabling the expansion of castor cultivation and improving castor-derived feedstocks availability. Ricin-free castor will also serve as a platform for "designer" oils for new biobased materials.

“We are excited to be working in collaboration with the Nova Synthetix team to take on this important agricultural challenge,” said Precision BioSciences CEO Matthew Kane. “We look forward to helping in the creation of a safer castor product.”

According to Nova Synthetix' President Don Walters, "This effort presents the opportunity to combine both companies' technology to create crop varieties with superior genetics for all sorts of industrial and food applications."

About Precision BioSciences

Precision BioSciences’ mission is to continually provide, improve, and enable the world’s most powerful genome engineering technology. Precision’s proprietary Directed Nuclease Editor^TM (DNE) technology enables the production of genome editing enzymes that can insert, remove, modify, and regulate essentially any gene in mammalian or plant cells.

Precision BioSciences’ vision is to be the conduit through which the world’s greatest genome engineering challenges are solved. Precision has successfully utilized its DNE technology to create innovative products in partnerships with many of the world’s largest biopharmaceutical and agbiotech firms. Internally, Precision is developing DNE-based product leads for agricultural, biologics manufacturing and human therapeutic applications. For additional information, please visit www.precisionbiosciences.com.

About Nova Synthetix

Nova Synthetix is developing non-GM approaches towards genome editing for crop improvement applications. While Nova Synthetix is targeting ricin-free castor as an initial product our approach could also serve as a platform for other non-GM product opportunities across multiple crops. For additional information, please visit www.novasynthetix.com.