North Carolina intensifies efforts to make state hospitable to defense and security start-ups

Published 7 April 2006

During the 1990s states competed with each in aggressive campaigns to lure foreign car manufacturers to locate their manufacturing facilities in their states. Now they compete with each other again in an effort to lure homeland security businesses to their states. The state of Illinois, for example, has an elaborate program to make the business and regulatory climate in the state especially hospitable for homeland security companies, and State Senator Michael Balboni (R-New York) is pushing forward a plan to create a homeland security incubator on Long Island (we will write more about the Balboni plan next week, and the week after that offer a comparative study of states’ homeland security efforts).

The North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA) has just announced that it has named three NCTA members to the Management Committee of the Partnership for Defense Innovation, the non-profit organization running the new Defense and Security Technology Accelerator (DSTA) in Fayetteville, N.C. The five-member Management Committee is responsible for developing and executing the business plan for the DSTA, which itself is the cornerstone of an initiative led by the NCTA Board of Directors for a Defense & Security Cluster across North Carolina. The Tar Heel state has many scientific and research resources, and the NCTA promotes a vision for a statewide innovation leverage of exiting resources, partnerships, and strategic advantages in North Carolina to create new jobs in the state. The DSTA will collaborate with the military, private industry, government, and entrepreneurs in this effort.

The three NCTA members named to join the leadership of the Partnership for Defense Innovation are:

Edward (Ed) Carney, vice president and general manager of the Government Systems Business Unit of Cisco Systems

Kenneth Marks is with Raytheon Corporation, and is currently the principal and managing director of Marks & Company

John Tuohey is director of operations for Sierra Nevada’s Tactical Communications Business Unit in Fayetteville

-read more at NCTA Web site