The Brown & White

The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania were awarded a $6 million grant on Sept. 26 to expand their facility on Mountaintop Campus.

The grant was awarded by Gary Locke, Secretary of the Department of Commerce.

The money is part of the Recovery Act funding, said Laura Eppler, director of marketing at Ben Franklin.

The grant money is going toward construction of a 47,000-square-foot addition to the Ben Franklin TechVentures incubator and post-incubator facilities on Mountaintop Campus, she said.

The building will increase growth and innovation in incubator and post-incubator technology, R. Chadwick Paul, Jr., president and chief executive officer of Ben Franklin, said.

The incubator program allows technology-based businesses to get off the ground with help from Ben Franklin. The Ben Franklin TechVentures incubators provide companies with inexpensive rental space, business support services and access to office services and equipment.

The current facility includes 11,000 square feet of wet lab space, Paul said.

"Wet lab space is in short supply, and is crucial to emerging companies in many technology-based sectors, from electronics to biotechnology," he said.

The program has been a success, Paul said.

"Since 1983, 44 successful companies have graduated from our incubator, which together grossed more than $675 million in annual revenue last year and created 4,000 highly paid jobs," he said.

"The expansion will bring together entrepreneurs, Ben Franklin staff and Lehigh faculty and students to their mutual advantage," Eppler said. The expansion will also be a benefit to the region's technology economy, she said.

There will be an increase in jobs when the new facility is opened, Eppler said. There are projected to be 200 new positions created while retaining the 100 existing jobs, she said.

There will be up to 20 internship positions available resulting from the expansion, Eppler said. The different majors that will be considered for the internships will depend on the companies that will be renting the space, she said.

However, since the focus of the Ben Franklin Technology Partners is on the technological economy, she expects that many of the internships will be in science, engineering and business, though other majors may also be considered for the available internships, Eppler said.

It is really exciting to have new internship opportunities on campus, said Karol Zieba, '10, a computer science and business major. "Having these new incubator companies looking for interns is a great opportunity for students looking to become part of an up-and-coming corporation."

The jobs will mainly be technology-based positions that will be involved with the resident companies within the facility, Eppler said. The salaries for these positions will be approximately 33 percent higher than the average Pennsylvania non-farm salary, she said.

A non-farm payroll is a statistic gathered by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics representing most of the U.S. employees' salaries. Employees that are not included in this statistic are government employees, non-profit employees and farm employees, which is a group that constitutes about 20 percent of the U.S. population.

Ben Franklin received the grant through a competitive selection process, Eppler said.

"Ben Franklin was selected competitively based on the potential for creation and retention of highly paid, sustainable jobs and our proven history in the successful development of the technology of the economy of northeastern Pennsylvania," she said.

Not only is the facility going to more than double the current available space, it is going to be a certified Leadership Energy and Environment Design (LEED) building and will include many energy saving technologies in the facility design, Paul said.