In Gov. Tina Kotek’s inaugural address, she called out the need for Oregon to increase investments in our high tech and semiconductor industry, create more high wage jobs and drive green energy advances.
It’s well-known that these investments will increase our citizens’ economic opportunities and resilience. And we can fast track Oregon’s progress towards these goals if we seize the opportunity to support local innovators.
Oregon’s economic vitality rests on our ability to encourage the founding and growth of innovation-based businesses. These companies cross industry lines and create new products, services, processes and business models that can be sold nationally and internationally. They’re primarily small and medium-sized businesses.
From new semiconductor manufacturing processes and novel ways to use timber byproducts to life-saving medical devices, Oregon’s innovation entrepreneurs are solving some of the toughest challenges our society faces – and they’re already delivering on our Governors and our state legislators’ priorities.
Take Inpria for example, a semiconductor technology company that spun out of Oregon State University. The company needed funds to prove its new approach to microchip manufacturing, which can take a decade or more of development in highly sophisticated semiconductor facilities. Oregon Innovation Council (Oregon InC), a public-private partnership that supports innovators to take new technologies from idea to market, provided crucial funds that enabled Inpria to attract federal grants and private funding.
As a result, the company has hired for 80 high wage positions in Corvallis and was acquired last year for $514 million by JSR. Now the company will stay and grow in Corvallis, spending millions with local construction companies, professional services, restaurants and more.
Inpria is just one example of how innovation-based businesses can accelerate Oregon’s progress towards elected officials’ priorities. There could be hundreds more Inprias founded across the state if our innovators receive adequate support from the state.
Data from Journal of Economic Perspectives shows that young, high growth businesses created nearly 50% of new jobs between 1980 and 2010. Innovation-based businesses disproportionately create high wage jobs that benefit all Oregonians.
Innovation-based entrepreneurship also drives 58% higher wage growth, which has a multiplier effect in our communities. These growing businesses support local restaurants, business services, hotels and increase the state’s tax base, funding education and essential social safety net programs.
State support is crucial for innovation entrepreneurs, who produce products that take years to launch and see financial returns, making it extremely difficult to secure private investment. Before innovators can turn a profit, they must test ideas, conduct clinical research, build manufacturing facilities, source lab space, and hire initial employees. Every dollar counts, and Oregon can help entrepreneurs stretch those dollars further with targeted investments in facilities, education and startup funding for innovators.
Thankfully, Oregon already helps bridge these gaps. Oregon InC was created by our legislators in 2005 to set the state’s innovation agenda. Oregon InC oversees Business Oregon’s innovation programs and implementation of Oregon’s 10-Year Innovation Plan. The plan calls for the state to remove barriers for innovators, help them get federal grants and connect them with private investment so they can then spend those dollars in their communities – just as Inpria has been able to do.
If fully put into action, the 10-Year Innovation Plan will make Oregon’s economy more diverse, inclusive and resilient. The plan will create high wage jobs for all Oregonians, including those high school diplomas, in rural communities and among historically underserved populations. And it will fuel the growth and sustainability of our state’s high tech, semiconductor, natural resources and advanced manufacturing sectors, among others.
To advance our state’s goals, we must increase innovators’ access to funding, facilities, networking and education – and the 10-Year Innovation Plan will do just that. It’s never been more important to the future of our communities.
Jenn Lynch is managing director of Portland Seed Fund and chair of the Oregon Innovation Council.
