A Big Year for the
Research Triangle
Center is fulfilling its promise by at¬
tracting 21 wide variety of experi¬
mental enterprises.
It is just ten years ago that the first
rough concept of North Carolina’s Re¬
search Triangle was tentatively put
forward as an idea that had merit. To¬
day. still in its formative years, the
Research Triangle is an educational-
scientific - industrial complex without
parallel in the nation.
The Research Triangle is a geo¬
graphic feature of North Carolina an¬
chored in the State’s three major uni¬
versity campuses — the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Duke
University in Durham, and North
Carolina State University at Raleigh.
The Triangle is a concept, too. It
has been demonstrated many times
that industry follows research, and a
corollary of this is that research fol¬
lows education. In the second half of
the twentieth century, brainpower is
the greatest single resource available
to us for industrial development and
economic advance. The university is
the source of this brainpower. Its
products arc new knowledge, fresh
ideas, and young men and women
skilled in the sciences and technology.
As such, the university is a regional
economic asset of the first magnitude.
Recognition of these facts led a
group of us to conceive of a state¬
wide effort for creating in North Caro¬
lina’s unique Triangle area a national
center for technologically - based re¬
search enterprise and industrial de¬
velopment. The effort was made, and
today the 5.000-acre Research Tri¬
angle Park is established as the na¬
tional center we originally envisioned,
with its years of greatest growth still
in the future.
A Busy Year
The past year, the most active in
the Research Triangle’s short history.
THE STATE, October I. 1965
has been as busy as a football season
with a homecoming game scheduled
for every Saturday:
— International Business Machines
Corporation, manufacturing giant of
the computer age. selected a site of
approximately 400 acres on which to
build a plant for producing data com¬
munications equipment and other units
for the new IBM System/360. A multi¬
million dollar installation, it will em¬
ploy some 1.000 research engineers
and other skilled workers.
— The U. S. Department of Health.
Education and Welfare announced se¬
lection of a 500-acre site for the
new National Environmental Health
Sciences Center. A major scientific un¬
dertaking by the federal government,
this $25 million. 1.200-man facility is
envisioned as a world center for re¬
search to safeguard man's health.
— Ground was broken for the $278,-
000 North Carolina Science and Tech¬
nology Research Center. This is a
State-sponsored agency that acts as a
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(In “Southern Markets/ Mcdij"»
technical information center to assist
North Carolina industry in utilizing
new technological advances generated
by the nation's space research pro¬
grams. Operating under appropriations
from the legislature, the North Caro¬
lina Board of Science and Technology,
the center's governing body, also
awards grants to support scientific
and industrial research applications in
the slate.
— A.ATCC. national headquarters of
the American Association of Textile
Chemists and Colorists, opened its
glistening new offices and laboratories.
— Tcchnitrol, Inc., a Philadelphia-
based manufacturer of electronic pulse
transformers and specialized comput¬
ers. began operations in the Park’s re¬
search applications area with an initial
work force of nearly 100 people and
with plans for an expanded research
and development activity to be located
here.
— Research Triangle Institute, now
established as one of the nation's lead¬
ing contract research organizations,
completed a fifth laboratory building to
house the operations of its rapidly
growing 250-man staff of scientists,
mathematicians, engineers and eco¬
nomists.
It Is No Accident
Almost nothing happens by accident,
and the developments that I have listed
( Continued on
раке
20)
Chcmitrond's loborotorics ot the Rcscorch Triangle, in Durham ond Wole counties.
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