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Letter from Larry Wilson Celebrating Five Years of Outstanding SCRA Results Under Bill Mahoney's Leadership

From: Larry Wilson, SCRA Board Member
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 3:00 PM
To: Bill Mahoney, SCRA CEO
Subject: SCRA

Dear Bill:

I realized with the close of the fiscal year that you have now been CEO of SCRA for five years and I want to personally reflect back on what has been accomplished. While we have a long way to go in South Carolina to bring incomes up to the national average I am enormously proud of the SCRA record under your leadership.

I am privileged to currently serve on 16 boards and have served on over 100 in my career, as well as being a CEO of a New York Stock Exchange listed company, and I have learned to judge CEO’s based on objective results, not subjective opinions. When I think back to the challenges we faced when you came on board, SCRA, I believe, has emerged as a highly productive and positive force for economic growth under your leadership, but let’s look at the objective record.

I spent some time last weekend reviewing the objective results and here is what I found:

SCRA Applied Research and Commercialization Business

• Annual revenues have more than doubled from $74M in 2005 to approximately $160M in 2010.

• Contract value under management is over five times the $235M in 2005 to approximately $1.3B in 2010.
• Just this year the backlog grew from $148M in 2008 to $279M in 2009 and we expect similar performance in 2010.
• The Moore School of Business at USC says the cumulative economic contribution of SCRA to SC has grown from $6.9B in 2005 to $13.7B in 2010, including over 15,000 knowledge economy jobs with annual per capita wages of between $55K and $77K. That is a huge positive impact to our state.

SCRA Knowledge-based Economic Development Mission

• The business performance of the Applied Research and Commercialization has enabled SCRA to invest over $27M in the SC Knowledge Economy versus this 225% of the $12M required in the mandate of the Innovation Centers Act and it has been accomplished without any state budget money.

• The SC Launch program, begun in 2006, has helped form or land over 230 startup technology companies in SC between 2006-2010.
• One hundred seventy eight of the 230 have received both funding and support services.
• Sixty two of the 178 are affiliated with research with in-state universities.
• Thirty seven of the 178 have received “portfolio” (equity or convertible debt) investments averaging $200K each.
• Over $120M in private, capital has been placed into the 37 portfolio companies either with SC Launch investments or as follow-on capital.
• Compensated jobs in the 178 funded and supported companies number approximately 1,000, with average annual wages above $77K.
• SC Launch has been recognized as a top technology-based economic development program in the southeast by the Southern Growth Policies Conference, in the nation by Society of State Technology Institutes, and globally by International Economic Development Council.
• The Legislature mandated three Innovation Centers be established using retained profits of SCRA. The Charleston operation was opened in December 2009; Columbia will be completed in July, 2010, and Clemson will be completed by Spring 2011. A fourth Innovation Center in Greenwood is now under SCRA management per the SC Bio integration in September 2009.

You have transformed SCRA from inward-focused scientific organization to outward-looking, research-based business, intent on fulfilling its public mission. You have reconstructed the management team, hiring commercial veterans, promoting a new CFO from within, replacing the retiring COO with a Battelle veteran. You have volunteered your time with economic development efforts by becoming a board member of the US Fuel Cell Council, National Hydrogen Association, and the National Energy Marketers Association to further business development in clean energy. You created and personally executed the 4 Officer Team and Knowledge Sector Council programs for coordinating statewide innovation/commercialization initiates. And you were named by TechJournal South in 2008 as one of the top 25 technology leaders in the Southeast.

The Legislature created a visionary, courageous agenda with the Endowed Chairs, Research Campus Bond Act, Innovation Centers, Industry Partners Act, Venture Capital Act, and others. The Research University presidents, along with others represented on the Knowledge Sector Council, have done an outstanding job of moving our state forward in the hyper-competitive knowledge economy. We have come from a backwater 47th in 2001 to a respectable 34th in 2008 in the Kaufman State New Economy Index. When the 2009 Index is released I expect we will be higher.

The long term correlation of education and research to economic prosperity and high paying jobs is simply indisputable. In these difficult economic times, we must focus even more on getting that message to our leaders and on supporting these crucial initiatives. It is really very clear: continuous, long-term investment in education and research creates higher incomes; you and SCRA must help coordinate both the message and lead its implementation. Your focus on this important mission has been impressive…and the results achieved are equally impressive.

In short, you have met and exceeded all of my expectations, and you are successful in spite of challenging circumstances. Keep in mind, every leader has some critics, be it a business CEO, political official, military officer or university president. It is the objective record that speaks loudest. That is how we should measure success and your record is impressive. Thank you for all you are doing for South Carolina… and keep doing it! Now enough celebrating – there is too much work to be done!

Sincerely,

Larry Wilson

This letter is published on Swamp Fox with the permission of the author.