Georgia's Innovation Crescent

Georgia’s Bioscience Cluster Region Formalizes

The Innovation Crescent Regional Partnership, a 13-county region from Atlanta to Athens, becomes an official organization

North Metro Atlanta, GA, May 3 – The Innovation Crescent, a 13-county region from Atlanta to Athens containing over 95% of Georgia’s Life Science assets, became its own organization today, with the 13 communities and organizations signing legal documentation to form the Innovation Crescent Regional Partnership (ICRP), LLC. The new organization will function as an economic development entity, focusing its efforts on job growth and wealth creation of the Life Sciences industry within its borders.

“The goal of any economic development organization is to focus on business development and retention, which is what we have been doing for the last two years of the cluster’s identifiable existence,” said ICRP Board Chairman and founding member, Nick Masino. “We hope that we can support the State’s efforts in the attraction of this industry with a renewed focus on cluster marketing and strategic planning via this newly formed organization of economic developers.”

The new organization formed a board the day it signed the operating agreement to include Chairman and Co-founder Nick Masino with Gwinnett Chamber Economic Development, Vice-Chairman and Co-founder Michael Starling with the DeKalb Office of Economic Development, Secretary Gregg Simon with the Atlanta Development Authority, Treasurer Rusty Haygood with Oconee County Board of Commissioners, Vice Chair of Regional Partnerships David Hartnett with the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Vice Chair of Committees Tedra Cheatham with the Greater North Fulton Chamber and additional board members Don Beaver with the Cobb Chamber, Linda Moore with the Barrow Economic Development Council, and Matt Forshee with the Athens-Clarke County Economic Development Foundation. Other members of the Innovation Crescent Regional Partnership include Jackson County, Oglethorpe County, Walton County, Morgan County, Madison County, Georgia Bio Organization and the Atlanta Regional Commission.

“The organization came together two years ago to focus on supporting the Governor’s workforce study identifying our region as the cluster for life science in Georgia,” said Vice-Chairman Michael Starling. “We have been supporting the region since 2008 and now have an official organization to represent it as such, a region, and not just a group of communities operating independent of one another.”

The Innovation Crescent was one of seven initial regions identified by the Governor’s office of workforce development as a “cluster region”, meaning that a vast majority of assets and workforce development programs were already in place to support industry with a given focus. In the Crescent’s case, the area from Atlanta to Athens held over 95% of the State’s assets in Life Science; everything from colleges and universities with programs designed around this industry to corporations and companies like Merial, Ciba Vision, Kimberly-Clarke and more. Launching a brand and marketing strategy in 2008, the partnership continued to operate under a cloak of collaboration between communities until it could formalize.

“The Innovation Crescent is pioneering Governor Perdue’s vision of linking education and workforce development together and aligning to regional economic development,” said Debra Lyons, Director of the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development. “To organize a strong bioscience region in less than two years after having a successful informal organizational present at both BIO 2008 and 2009 showcasing both a winning marketing strategy with substantive workforce development results are just a few of the things that this region has collectively been able to accomplish in implementation of this vision. The Innovation Crescent is now providing leadership for other emerging regional clusters in our state.”

“A strong workforce is at the top of every bioscience company’s list, and is one of Georgia’s biggest assets,” said Ken Stewart, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. “The Innovation Crescent is a prime example of the way our public and private partners collaborate to ensure Georgia’s workers are trained and ready to help these companies thrive in our state.”

The Innovation Crescent Regional Partnership is the marketing organization to the Georgia Innovation Crescent workforce region that is made up of 30 research and/or educational institutions working to develop workforce to meet the demands of this strong and vibrant industry in Georgia and the region. The Regional Partnership will be exhibiting for the third year in a row at the BIO International Convention in Chicago this year, as part of Georgia’s booth (booth #1631. Additionally, the Partnership will also be at the Georgia Life Sciences Summit in October of this year.

For more information, please visit the website at www.innovationcrescent.com <http://www.innovationcrescent.com> . Additionally, the organization can also be found on LinkedIn and Twitter (@innovcrescent).

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About the Innovation Crescent

Georgia's Innovation Crescent is anchored by the nation's busiest airport, with Atlanta on one end and Athens-Clarke County, home of the University of Georgia, on the other. The Innovation Crescent is both a geographic area and a coalition of more than a dozen counties and entities focused on life sciences and economic development.