Consortium hammers out details to land national research facility

Mississippi Business Journal, The, Jul 7, 2008 by Chandler, Clay

Though the announcement is not due until this fall, the group lobbying the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to select Flom as the site of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) is not sitting around and waiting.

The Gulf States Bio and Agricultural Consortium made its case before an assembled group of media June 27. The consortium is made up of economic development entities around the state and a handful of the Mississippi's institutions of higher learning. Two out-of-state universities, Tulane and Iowa State, join Battelle in rounding out the consortium. Battelle is a Columbus, Ohio-based science and technology enterprise that explores emerging areas of science, develops and commercializes technology and manages laboratories around the world.

The consortium met in Jackson to hammer out the details behind its final push to land the $451-million facility that will serve as a kind of Centers of Disease Control for animals. Flora is one of five sites vying for the project. The others are spots in Texas, Kansas, Georgia and Plum Island, N.Y., home to the current facility.

"This is going to play a very important role in this nation's security," said Gray Swoope, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority. "We have a consortium nobody can compete with."

DHS announced in January 2006 that it needed a new facility whose staff would research and develop countermeasures to diseases that infect animals, especially livestock whose primary mission is to provide for the nation's food supply.

Notable in the consortium is Iowa State and Mississippi State (MSU), schools that possess internationally recognized veterinary medicine programs.

Also bolstering the consortium's profile is Battelle, a not-for-profit that already man-ages eight facilities that conduct similar work the new DHS facility will do.

"Nobody compares as a partner like Battelle," Swoope said.

Duane O'Neill, president of the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership, said the consortium has held some 80 public meetings seeking input about the possibility of Flora landing the project, and said the feedback has been "nothing but positive." There is another public meeting scheduled for August.

"Every question is goal," O'Neill said.

Battelle CEO Jeff Wadsworth said his company decided to join the Mississippi consortium after thoroughly examining the other five groups putting together proposals to attract the lab. Battelle currently operates six labs for the Department of Energy and one for DHS.

"The reason is simple: This is the best team, and we like being part of winning teams," Wadsworth said.

The facility would sit on 150 acres in Flora's industrial park and would create between 250 and 350 jobs, most of those high-salaried positions rooted in scientific research.

"We think this is such an important investment," Wadsworth said. "And there's certainly an economic development component to it. When you run science and technology, you can have a major impact."

Swoope lauded the consortium's academic partners - MSU, Ole Miss, Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State, Tougaloo, Alcorn, Iowa State, Tulane and University of Mississippi Medical Center - saying they were "one of the keys" to its being successful.

Swoope says, "(Flora) is the most cost-efficient site. We want people to understand that. There is a lot of technology horsepower behind this proposal."