When discussing the Louisiana Business & Technology Center, executive director Charlie D’Agostino is confident.
“We know we’re the best,” he says, “and I have the data to back it up.”
The LBTC has won or been a finalist for several national awards, including the National Business Incubation Association’s Incubator of the Year award in 2005, and it’s a finalist for the NBIA’s 2009 Incubator Innovation Award for its Incubator on Wheels program. Small businesses based at LBTC have access to resources inside LSU, including faculty members and graduate students, as well as outside the campus, through the center’s diverse board, D’Agostino says.
“I can open any door in this area for my clients,” he says.
LBTC opened on the LSU campus in November 1988. As of March 20, there were 25 businesses in the center’s high-tech, small-business incubator, and more than 300 companies were involved in the center’s outreach program. From 1989 through the end of 2008, 135 companies had graduated from the incubator, creating 2,256 jobs, and 105 of those companies were still in business, according to the center’s annual report.
1. What sorts of companies are housed at the LBTC incubator?
We consider technology to be micromachining, advanced materials, coastal restoration, engineering, green technology, renewable energy—not just IT. We really look for that company that can build something, make something and sell something that’s tangible, other than some Internet-based deal. Every company here has some form of technology. I do have two training companies; one is in the petrochemical industry, and another that’s in the medical area.
2. ERF Wireless, a well-established Texas company, opened a Baton Rouge office at the incubator this year. They’re not a startup; why did they get in?
We have a program that they fit under called “soft landings.” I rented them one office, and they have two people coming to Baton Rouge. They’re going to come to Baton Rouge, set up and start figuring out where they want to locate and how much space they’re going to need. We’re giving them a place to start, with the contingency that they’re going to graduate out of here very quickly. It may be three months; it may be six months. It certainly won’t be more than a year. It’s part of our recruiting deal with Louisiana Economic Development and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber.
3. But isn’t ERF Wireless competing with young companies that might need an incubator?
If it came down to a soft-landing company and an entrepreneur who’s just starting up, I would probably go to my board with that and get some guidance. There are two sides of that coin. If we work with that soft-landing company, they have the real potential to hire 20, 30, 40 people within a year. That entrepreneur just starting up may get to three or four people within that year. So from an economic development standpoint, BRAC and LED would probably rather see us help that soft-landing company get going and do the entrepreneur next.
4. What do you think of the BRAC-led effort to create a strategic plan for the LBTC, Louisiana Technology Park and LSU’s Louisiana Emerging Technology Center?
I don’t know what the motivation [for the study] is. We do our job, and we’re going to continue to do our job.
5. The three facilities have a reputation for not working well together.
I manage clients [in the Emerging Technology Center]. We provide all the business counseling and support services and all the training for them. So we are basically one in the same, only we have two different buildings, and we have two focuses. [The Louisiana Technology Park at] Bon Carré [on Florida Boulevard] is a little different. They focus on IT. We don’t have a lot of interaction with them, although some of their companies are clients of ours through our outreach program. As far as I’m concerned, we all work together. We’ll just see what the study says.
6. Is the Louisiana Technology Park your competition?
We really don’t compete with the Bon Carré guys, because if you’re a little Internet IT company, I guess you would go there. I don’t go out and recruit against them. We don’t have to recruit.
7. I was going to ask why a plan wasn’t devised sooner, but it sounds like you’re telling me a master plan wasn’t needed.
I can’t say that because I’m not at that level, and I wasn’t in the discussions of why they decided to do it. Interestingly, there’s a small incubator at Southern that was left out. Why is that? In the Baton Rouge Chamber’s area in Livingston Parish, the Dixie Business Center in Denham Springs is an incubator, and we work and support all their tenants. So why weren’t they included if we’re doing a regional study of incubators? The food technology incubator over at Lamar-Dixon is set to close down. We helped that one get started. So we feel we are the go-to group to help all these other incubators because we have LSU, and we have more resources that the companies need.
8. How would LSU budget cuts affect LBTC?
We self-generate all of our funding. I’m not worried about the budget cuts that LSU is getting. I don’t get any money from LSU.
9. Would LSU cuts affect LBTC indirectly?
Certainly, LSU is going to focus on its core mission, which is education and research. So if faculty are furloughed or let go, then some of the faculty that I’ve been pulling to work with my companies are possibly going to say, “I’ve got to teach two more classes, I don’t have time for you.” That affects me personally, and that affects my companies and my ability to tap the LSU resources. And the resources may dwindle. We may not have access to all the things we normally would if there are huge budget cuts.
10. You worked for years to try and attract a Double-A baseball team here. Does Baton Rouge still need professional baseball?
I’m always going to think that. I think it’s good for quality of life. The LSU season is going to end in May. All of us baseball nuts have nothing to do in June, July, August and September. I really believe we could support one here. But with LSU’s new stadium, that is going to eliminate any chance of a downtown ballpark or any stadium in East Baton Rouge Parish.
LBTC BY THE NUMBERS
5,300 Businesses and entrepreneurs receiving technological and management assistance from 1999-2008
2,517 Business or marketing plans developed
499 Businesses started after receiving assistance, creating or saving at least 9,421 jobs
135 Incubator tenant graduates since 1989, creating 2,256 jobs
105 Incubator tenant graduates since 1999 that are still in business, a 77% success rate
