Byron Clayton, whose recent resignation as CEO of the Research Park Corporation became public late Thursday, says he wasn’t looking for a new job. But when a friend from Pennsylvania called and suggested he should apply for the newly created position as CEO of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute (ARM) in Pittsburgh, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to throw his hat in the ring.
Clayton came to Baton Rouge in early 2015 from Cleveland, Ohio, where he’d helped lead a regional economic development organization called NorTech, and his background was in robotics.
“I usually get a couple of calls like that a year and ignore them,” Clayton said Thursday. “But this one, because it ties into my background, was perfect. I couldn’t pass it up.”
The position at ARM, which was founded at Carnegie Mellon University in 2017 and recently spun off as an independent nonprofit organization, came together fast. Clayton accepted it, without even giving the RPC an opportunity to counter the offer. He resigned shortly before Christmas, though RPC staff was not notified until Thursday.
RPC board chair Edmund Giering says the move was initially kept quiet to give ARM an opportunity to make the announcement about Clayton’s hiring first.
“We were working in coordination with them,” says Giering, who praised Clayton’s leadership and accomplishments over the past three years.
Clayton leaves the RPC after recently completing a strategic plan. The organization has evolved in recent years, and now oversees three separate economic development entities: the Louisiana Technology Park, best known for its business incubator; Innovation Catalyst, a nonprofit that provides seed capital to Louisiana startups; and NexusLA, which tries to connect early-stage companies to capital, resources and talent.
With Clayton’s departure, there may be opportunity for still more evolution. Giering says the board will meet early next week to determine the next steps in the executive search process, and whether that will include a national search.
Giering says the board intends to replace Clayton and that a new CEO will be charged with implementing the strategic plan Clayton helped complete in 2017.
“We have made more progress in the last three years than in the previous three and we’ve developed a strategic plan that is ready to be implemented,” he says. “We have a clear path to several initiatives, all of which are important to the Baton Rouge community and the Super Region.”
—Stephanie Riegel
