PERSPECTIVE: SRI’s presence in the Valley promising

Demonstrating the kind of dexterity one finds only in politicians and yoga masters, Gov. Tim Kaine ventured Nov. 9 to Harrisonburg to administer pats, to his back principally and others’ perfunctorily.

Ensuring the bipartisan nature of the ritual, Del. Steve Landes, R-Weyers Cave, joined Kaine at the event marking the grand opening of SRI International, the research and development institute and presumed provider of economic salvation to the Valley.

The nonprofit monolith — known for its part in planning Disneyland, developing stealth technology and cultivating a multimedia e-mail system — has opened a drug research center as the anchor of the 300-acre Rockingham County Center for Research and Technology. The state lured SRI to the Valley with $22 million in incentive money that so far has produced 18 jobs, a number officials say will swell to 100.

The flow of optimism SRI inspires does not stop there: “This is a transformational economic event,” Robin Sullenberger, chief of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership, told Virginia Business. “It propels us immediately into the bioscience world.”

Sullenberger does not go so far as others do, asserting that SRI could spring the emergence of a second Silicon Valley in the one now called the Shenandoah. Nonetheless, fed by SRI execs themselves, the feeling that spinoff companies soon will sprout pervades. “I see the Shenandoah Valley as a hub not only for biotech but for high-tech,” Krishna Kodukula, executive director of SRI’s new center, told Virginia Business. “I think it will happen over the next five to 10 years.”

It would be overstating things somewhat to say that it needs to happen to validate taxpayers pouring $22 million into the project. Given SRI’s reputation and record, Kaine had better than sufficient cause to ante up state money, and people in the Valley have reason to give thanks the place wound up here. In other words, we’re willing to give Kaine and Landes a few pats, too.

This is what might properly be called an investment of government money, rather than simple spending, based on what is considered a high probability of return. Officials assessing what to do in 2006, when the SRI deal was brokered, made what looked to be sound decisions at the time. Still, it is not overstating things to say that SRI’s benefits are founded as much in what it might engender — those spinoff jobs — as the new center itself.