MATRIC - the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center - has already put dozens of ex-chemical industry Ph.D.'s to work in South Charleston. Yesterday the non-profit group, which was launched in 2004, announced a new round of investments and new jobs. From the Charleston Gazette:
The Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center in South Charleston will add 150 new high-tech jobs in the next 18 months and is receiving $2 million in federal funds to start a Homeland Security data integration center, the center announced on Wednesday.
"While a lot of people are afraid for their jobs, we are creating jobs," MATRIC chief executive officer Keith Pauley said prior to the group's annual celebration on Wednesday.
MATRIC will partner with Butler International Inc. to form the International Design Center, which will create 150 new engineering and research and development jobs. Butler is a tech outsourcing company headquartered in Florida.
This is what it's all about - leveraging innovation to create jobs, not just wait for them to come.
WVU is also on the move with the opening of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute. You can also hear - if you listen closely - the phrase "new economy" cross the lips of various politicians running for election or re-election this season.
As hundreds of folks head to Snowshoe Mountain next week (including Keith Pauley, CEO of MATRIC and a featured speaker), we can celebrate the progress our state is making across many pillars for "building creative communities for the new economy."
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