By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

Editor’s note: This is the fifth part of a six-part series examining the AngleouEconomics report and the five cluster industries the report recommended economic developers pursue.

When it comes to doing the spadework for the biosciences business cluster, the fourth of five clusters consultant AngelouEconomics identified as vital to the Charleston region’s future, economic developers confront a unique dilemma.

Unlike the automotive or aviation industries, which typically need scores of workers to keep a stream of assembly line-crafted products flowing seamlessly, bioscience companies need relatively few workers with highly specialized skills.

“It’s a problem in recruiting from a logistical standpoint, of course. You’d love to have homegrown workers,” said Pearce Gilbert, of Argolyn Bioscience Inc. in North Charleston.

“Companies in this field are risky ventures, especially startups. And the one thing Charleston can’t provide yet is a comforting answer to the question, ‘Where do I go if I move to Charleston and this company doesn’t work out?’”

But that’s a question that’s going to need to be answered if Charleston is to secure a piece of an industry that’s grown exponentially in other parts of the country during the past decade.

When AngelouEconomics surveyed the industry in 2003 and early 2004 for its report to the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, the industry had added nearly 130,000 jobs during the previous 10 years.

What’s more, the consultant found, average wages in the industry had increased at an even more dizzying rate, growing more than 83% between 1993 and 2003 to $67,760.

Projections based on U.S. Department of Labor statistics also suggested that in the next decade, jobs in the biosciences sector will grow at a 13% higher rate than all other industry sectors.

Resources entice bioscience

The AngelouEconomics report noted that bioscience firms have historically clustered around communities that have addressed the issues Pearce raised, either through the amount of research dollars that are spent in the region, or by giving incentives to the industry to such an extent that alternative jobs, if not plentiful, are at least a reasonable expectation for prospective, relocating workers.

The bioscience cluster, a catch-all phrase applied to all businesses that in some way apply a knowledge of molecular, cellular and genetic processes to real-world products related to human health, agriculture, medicine and industry, relies heavily on a college-educated and, in most cases, Ph.D.-holding work force.

The industry also requires skilled laboratory technicians, semi-skilled production people, and sales staff who, while having a more generic job title, still need a refined knowledge of the niche the company is trying to serve.

David Ginn, president and CEO of the CRDA, said establishing niche knowledge bases for companies in a wide variety of industries is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome when promoting the development of a business cluster.

“I think it’s become a common thread in discussions since the AngelouEconomics report was released,” he said. “What companies need today isn’t a worker with the kind of generalized training we saw in traditional manufacturing. What they need is specific coursework geared to an industry and, often times, a very narrow niche within that industry.”

“That’s really become the focus of the collaboration between Trident Technical College, the state’s CATT program, the (Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce) and others,” Ginn said. “While the alliance itself isn’t directly involved in those efforts, it’s my hope that the community will support and be responsive to the kind of very targeted training that’s developing for all these industry clusters.”

Local universities are also responding to the growing need for biochemists, microbiologists and computer engineers. The College of Charleston, recently introduced a new interdisciplinary program in discovery informatics the first undergraduate program of its kind in the country.

The Citadel, the College of Charleston, Charleston Southern University and the Lowcountry Graduate Center also offer a broad array of science and technical degrees programs. The Medical University of South Carolina comprises six separate medical colleges and awards over 700 M.D, Ph.D and master’s degrees annually.

Trident Technical College is another key educational asset, with associate degree programs in laboratory and computer technology.

But for all this activity, the region’s success in garnering the cluster is far from certain.

A few workers at a time

In many respects, Argolyn Biosciences is a perfect example of the kind of bioscience companies the region’s economic developers want to attract and the challenges those businesses face.

It’s a small company, having just three employees including Gilbert himself, and one for which he said work force development is seen as a luxury.

“It would be great to have programs in place internally that would provide us with 10 or 20 trained technicians over time, but for a company like us, that’s just not a concern right now,” he said. “Right now, what I really need is to replace a single chemist who is leaving.”

Argolyn was founded four years ago based on technology licensed from MUSC, and Gilbert said since that time the medical university has provided a “nice training ground for the types of people we might need.”

“The last time we were hiring chemists, we sent letters to a lot of chemistry departments around the country and also posted an advertisement on our Web site,” Gilbert said. “Of the two people we hired, one was from California and the other, from the University of Georgia.”

“This time around, we posted an advertisement in a trade journal and got 50 to 70 responses. We hope to start interviewing candidates in the next few weeks.”

All workers are hard to find

Kelvin Brockbank, president and chief science officer for Cell & Tissue Systems Inc. in Charleston, said that in the eight years the company has been here he’s had little trouble in hiring the technicians or Ph.D.s he needs.

“The challenge has been finding senior managers with experience in the field, particularly in regards to quality control and regulatory issues,” he said, “That’s when we have to look for people nationally, which increases our experiences.”

“(The added expense of national recruiting) is one of the things I think differentiates Charleston from someplace like Atlanta, which has a huge biosciences cluster,” he said. “It costs us more to get certain types of workers at a very precarious time in our business life cycle.”

“Technicians aren’t a problem, because we have local workers with those skills, either through MUSC, the College of Charleston, or through their working at one of the technical institutions here, but finding other types of workers is definitely more of a challenge,” he said.

Andy Gresham, president of Raisio-Staest US Inc. of Summerville, which manufacturers a product that reduces the cholesterol content in margarines, yogurts, cheeses and even pasta, also didn’t have a problem hiring his first 30 employees when the company opened its doors in the Lowcountry eight years ago.

As a subsidiary of a major European company, Raisio-Staest had plenty of assistance from the state, and particularly the technical college system.

“What has been a problem is when we have turnover,” he said. “These job training programs that the state offers to help businesses locate here are expensive and difficult for the technical colleges to maintain, especially when you consider how few new employees the typical new biosciences company will need at any given time. So what you don’t have in many cases is continuity in the kind of specific training a company like ours needs over the long term.”

“The programs Trident does continue to offer are very good,” he added. “But mechanical training isn’t going to give us that right person we need. We also need the educational system to be teaching chemical engineering and reasoning skills,” he said. “We need workers with excellent mechanical skills, good math skills, outstanding reasoning skills and a background in chemistry, … that’s very hard to find.”

Brockbank said he hopes people don’t get too far ahead of the curve worrying about work force development.

“The thing we need right now is for the people who form these businesses to have a place to go, access to wet labs. We probably, today in Charleston, need a facility containing three or four wet labs, each about 1,000 square feet,” he said.

“We also need these facilities to offer relatively short leases, which obviously developers don’t like because the government grants are unreliable sources of income and other funding, from family, for instance, is so tenuous. Finally, and this goes directly to that point, you need a way to bolster these companies’ fundraising efforts. Right now, for instance, I’m trying to finance the feasibility study for our research that will help define our product.”

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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