Louisiana Business Technology Center turns 21

The Louisiana Business & Technology Center at LSU will mark its 21st birthday today with an award and a reception. At 6 p.m. at LSU’s Lod Cook Conference Center, John Fernandez, assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Barry Johnson, a senior advisor for the economic development administration, will be on hand to give the LBTC the U.S. Department of Commerce Excellence in Economic Development Award. Charlie D’Agostino, executive director of the LBTC, says the organization is getting the award for its incubator on wheels, which provides training in rural and disaster areas. The incubator on wheels was launched in October 2005, making it naturally associated with recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But D’Agostino says the incubator on wheels was planned before the devastating storms. “We ordered it prior to Katrina,” he says. “The biggest funding agency was the U.S. Department of Agriculture and we were scheduled to bring it to rural Louisiana.” Katrina and Rita changed those plans, causing the incubator to spend more time in hurricane-ravaged south Louisiana. During its years of operations, more than 135 companies have graduated from the LBTC. Those businesses now employ more than 2,000 people. “We keep getting better and better,” D’Agostino says. “We’ve got 28 companies now and they’re some of the strongest firms we’ve ever had.”—Timothy Boone