Research center to add 150 jobs; Separate project to coordinate data for Homeland Security

By Sarah K. Winn
Charleston Gazette
Hawaii university wins security study center

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — 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.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who attended Wednesday's event, was particularly pleased about the addition of new jobs.

"The best way to improve our economy here at home is to provide job security, promote stability and drive economic development. This announcement is a perfect example of something that's being done right in these trying times," Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a news release.

The jobs, he said, would have an average annual salary of $100,000. "And, all of this comes at a time with a lot of economic uncertainty."

Also on Wednesday, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va, announced $2 million in federal funding to start the Project National Shield Integration Center, which will work to coordinate Homeland Security data.

"It's an investment in our future. It plants a tree that will grow a forest," she said.

The $2 million was included in the U.S. Department of Defense appropriation approved by Congress.

Rockefeller, Capito and state Commerce Secretary Kelley Goes appeared at the annual celebration Wednesday. They committed to support MATRIC's work to keep high-technology jobs in the Kanawha Valley.

"If we are investing in people with intellectual curiosity, this just a win-win-win situation," Goes said. "We look for great things in the future."

MATRIC started in 2004 and has 19 laboratories and 19,000 square feet of laboratory and office space in Dow Tech Park.

The center employs 83 scientists and engineers, including 31 Ph.D.-level researchers. In total, the center has completed $22.5 million in research since it began.

The center comprises five companies focusing on chemical and environmental technologies, health and life sciences and advanced engineering systems. Also, the center has facilitated the start-up of six manufacturing and service businesses.

In late 2007, MATRIC committed to hiring displaced Dow workers after the company announced it would cut 150 research and development jobs from its Union Carbide Corp. division at the South Charleston Technology Park by the end of the 2009.

The cuts were part of a massive Dow downsizing since 2000 and will leave just 550 Dow employees in the state.

Pauley sees continued growth at MATRIC, with a goal of creating 20 companies in the next five years.

Since 2004, MATRIC has doubled its employees every year. Pauley hopes that trend improves, with a goal of 500 employees in research and development and engineering positions.

"It's a real stable and growing presence within MATRIC," he said

Copyright 2008 Charleston Newspapers