The new 4MLK facility at the UMD Biopark is creating new opportunities to launch high-tech ventures in Baltimore. Photo courtesy of University of Maryland Biopark.
Federal and state initiatives around tariffs, taxes, reshoring manufacturing, bolstering high-tech industries or cutting research funding have been claiming headlines. But on quieter fronts, economic development organizations, academic institutions, private companies, investors, philanthropists and commercial real estate professionals have been advancing their own efforts to expand Maryland’s high-tech and manufacturing sectors.
It is a drive that is simultaneously aided by stunning resources and hampered by major obstacles. But advocates say they are making headway and creating new opportunities for growth.
“Our potential is magnificent. We should be Silicon Valley East,” said Anirban Basu, Chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group. “We are the home of U.S. Cyber Command, Fort Detrick, Aberdeen Proving Ground and Patuxent River Naval Air station who are all doing very specialized, very important research. We’re at the cutting edge of drone technology, quantum computing, defense technologies, you name it. We have the highest institutional research and development funding per capita in the country. We’re a potential juggernaut in the world of commercial biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.”
Yet, when Maryland researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs are ready to commercialize their inventions, they often migrate to other states to avail of lower taxes, lesser regulations, cheaper land, more abundant workforce, eager investors or clusters of other companies in their field.
Multiple local efforts are trying to stem that migration.
Commercializing discoveries
This spring, the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC) launched its Bold Moves campaign – a marketing effort to build a regional brand for the city and neighboring counties that aims to attract fresh investors and entrepreneurs.
“To be clear, this is not as simple as creating a new tagline and using a new Pantone color in our marketing,” said Lakey Boyd, GBC’s Chief Economic Officer.
The Maryland Tech Council’s new BioHub provides leading edge training in biotech manufacturing. Photo courtesy of Maryland Tech Council.
Based on deep research with local stakeholders and 250 decision-makers across the country, the Bold Moves campaign is standing up a separate business-investment website for the region and strategically seeking out companies, innovators and investors who fit existing industry clusters in the region (such as life sciences, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, cyber and advanced manufacturing), fill gaps in those clusters or supply chains, and bring something new to the table.
“We want to know what are you doing that’s innovative, what are you doing that is disruptive from a business model standpoint, or what are you the first in doing,” Boyd said.
That initiative is advancing in conjunction with the region’s federal Technology Hub designation which focuses on the intersection of biotech and AI. To date, that designation has directly netted the region $500,000 in federal funds from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to establish the Regional Innovation Office.
Boyd, however, says it is just beginning to deliver bigger benefits, both financial and non-monetary.
“We have leveraged $23 million in state and federal funding that was not EDA-related through our Tech Hub consortium,” she said. “There are also non-funding benefits from the Tech Hub designation. There’s access to a lot of federal resources, trade navigation, cybersecurity risk assessments. A big benefit is our ability to participate in Select USA so we get access to foreign direct investment.”
The Tech Hub initiative, Boyd added, has brought the city and surrounding counties together in a unified effort to attract companies and investment (rather than competing with each other). That effort includes finding ways to help companies get into facilities faster and support the “lab to fab” stage of commercialization.
“We have a real ability with some small, micro, even modular manufacturing to offer plug-and-play fabrication and even some possibility for third-party manufacturing,” Boyd said.
Shovel-ready opportunities
Various local jurisdictions are embarking on initiatives to make their areas attractive to high-tech and manufacturing companies.
Strouse is one of more than 130 manufacturers in Carroll County’s growing manufacturing sector. Photo courtesy of Carroll County Economic Development.
Recently, the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in Carroll County invested nearly $5 million to complete mass grading, stormwater management, road access and infrastructure (gas, electric and broadband fiber) at the 32-acre North Carroll Business Park in Hampstead. The development is zoned for light industrial.
Carroll Country officials hope it will realize the same success as a previous IDA development, the Westminster Technology Park. Designed to meet higher aesthetic standards and restrict tenants to manufacturing and technology ventures, the Westminster site helped grow the county’s manufacturing sector which now includes more than 130 manufacturers and employs nearly 4,000 people, said Denise Beaver, Director of Economic Development.
That sector has grown to include a wide range of manufacturers, said Paige Sunderland, Deputy Director of Economic Development. “We have traditional wood truss manufacturers and a cluster of stair manufacturers in Taneytown. We also have a cluster of defense-related manufacturers who make component parts for the Army and the Navy, and batteries for missiles.”
The county, Beaver said, is currently updating its master plan and looking for additional land to zone for industrial/manufacturing uses. The county, she added, works to make the entitlement process for new projects as swift and smooth as possible.
Creating ways to quickly develop new industrial properties is a focus of several counties.
When Kite Pharma needed to build a new facility fast, Frederick County officials compressed their permitting process by nearly two-thirds. Photo courtesy of Frederick County Economic Development.
Frederick County created a ‘turbo-fast’ permitting process to help companies meet their schedules for developing new facilities. For example, when Kite Pharma sought to build a 70,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on a greenfield site in Urbana, county officials collaborated with the company to cut permitting time by nearly two-thirds, said Jodie Bollinger, Frederick County Director of Economic Development.
In the Salisbury, Wicomico County area, local governments, economic development officials and private companies are collaborating to create shovel-ready opportunities.
“At our most recent industrial park, Westwood Commerce Park in Salisbury, we teamed up with the landowner and designed a 200,000-square-foot facility on 20 acres,” said David Ryan, Executive Director of Salisbury-Wicomico Economic Development (SWED). “By going through the approval process, addressing the permitting issues and ensuring the infrastructure is in place, we can shorten the construction cycle.”
St. John Properties was so convinced of the growth potential in the Wicomico County area that it broke ground last fall on the first phase of its own development at Westwood Commerce Park – two spec, flex/R&D buildings totaling more than 70,000 square feet on 16 acres.
SWED is also partnering with Wicomico County, which owns land at the Salisbury Airport.
“We’re designing hangar facilities and putting them through the site approval and permitting process so when prospective users of the airfield need to construct a facility, they can start quickly,” Ryan said.
Developing a regional economy
Meanwhile, the new regional approach to economic development, especially in high tech industries, is creating opportunities, said Jennifer Jones, CEO of the Howard County Economic Development Authority (HCEDA).
Incubator and accelerator services at the Maryland Innovation Center in Howard County are helping about three dozen high-tech companies advance. Photo courtesy of Howard County Economic Development.
In April, Howard County launched it cyber accelerator — a 12-week program supported by industry experts and testing facilities — to help early-stage cybersecurity companies commercialize their products. The county also runs the Maryland Innovation Center — an incubator and business accelerator that is currently supporting 35 high-tech companies.
“But since the GBC pulled us together in this Tech Hub, we’ve created a consortium that works together as a region. We never did that before,” Jones said. “Now, I have monthly meetings with operators of other incubators and we are working together to fill each other’s pipeline of companies and link our assets together.”
Meanwhile, the Maryland Tech Council (MTC) has expanded its efforts to help companies commercialize their innovations in Maryland. That includes efforts to “consolidate the medtech ecosystem” by bringing more researchers and entrepreneurs together.
MTC is also working to attract both outside and local investors by making investors more aware of startup companies and innovations in Maryland (in part through its new podcast) and educating investors about the high-tech ecosystem in Maryland so that they become more confident investing in the state.
“MTC has also built a BioHub, a biotech manufacturing training center in Montgomery County,” said Kelly Schulz, Chief Executive Officer. “We licensed the curriculum from an organization in Ireland called NIBRT [the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training]. They are considered the global standard for this type of training.”
Regional economic development efforts are helping fill the pipeline of companies into high tech incubators. Photo courtesy of Howard County Economic Development.
Not only is the BioHub supporting companies and trainees in the region, but it is also attracting people from as far away as California.
Private investment is also fueling new prospects for growth in the high-tech and manufacturing industries, Schulz said. She points to 4MLK as a key development. The newly constructed, 250,000-square-foot facility at the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s BioPark provides laboratory, flex and office space plus access to life sciences infrastructure to biotech, science, technology, and healthcare tenants.
“What Wexford is trying to create there is a startup ecosystem and a venture capital operation. I am optimistic about it. It is a sign of private sector interest and investment in the community,” she said.
In January, Edward and Jennifer St. John in conjunction with the Edward St. John Foundation gifted $10 million to establish the Edward & Jennifer St. John Center for Translational Engineering and Medicine at 4MLK. The center will bring together individuals from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the A. James Clark School of Engineering to develop medical devices and diagnostics. The donation will also create an endowment for professorships in bioengineering and student awards in translational engineering and medicine.
“Ed and Jennifer St. John and our foundation board want to be on the forefront of these types of activities,” said Sharon Akers, President of the Edward St. John Foundation. “We believe the center will be a catalyst for innovative life-altering and life-saving collaborations and discoveries. We are also excited that it will further recruitment and retention of students, allied healthcare professionals, researchers, physicians and faculty members.”
New taxes, funding cuts
All those efforts to boost high-tech and manufacturing, however, must overcome significant obstacles.
Maryland’s new 3 percent sales tax on some information technology services “puts us in a less competitive situation,” Schulz said. “It is going to be an uphill battle to continue to market Maryland as the best place for cybersecurity, digital tech, anything involving the data industry.”
Massive federal cuts to research funding are impeding the progress of many innovators, especially in life sciences, Schulz said. “When you take away those research dollars, it impacts the viability of those researchers and companies with other investors, so it further harms their funding.”
Other federal cuts could hamper the growth of the manufacturing sector.
“We recently got an SOS from one of our partners, the Maryland Extension Partnership,” Beaver said. “They warned that NIST is possibly eliminating funding to the MEP and that organization has been providing resources, support and training to manufacturers in Maryland for the last 10 years.”