NanoRite, a $5 million center to house and advance business ventures in the ultrasmall, opened Friday in west Eau Claire as speakers praised its potential for bringing new jobs and industry to the Chippewa Valley.
Third District Congressman Ron Kind, describing a world of hypercompetition, asked, “How are we going to remain the most innovative and creative society in the world? Kind said the new NanoRite Center speaks directly to that challenge.
Bill Ihlenfeldt, president of Chippewa Valley Technical College and leader of the effort to build the center, said it “would be a catalyst for substantial economic growth.”
Wisconsin Sec. of Commerce Mary Burke said NanoRite would serve the entire state. “It’s going to move Wisconsin forward.” She said the Doyle administration has been successful in staunching manufacturing job loss, unlike many neighboring states. Wisconsin exports have been growing 50 percent faster than the nation. She attributes both trends to Wisconsin’s emphasis on education. It was an idea later echoed by Eau Claire County Board Member Colleen Bates.
“We have to make sure that Wisconsin has the best trained workforce in the world,” Burke said. The Center will serve as an incubator and abuts the CVTC manufacturing campus on Alpine Road.
Jack Uldrich, whose consulting firm NanoVeritas months ago advised Ihlenfeldt and the CVTC board not to undertake a center that would be purely nano-oriented, said that a few years ago he spoke to a large audience of college presidents and several approached him afterwards to have him speak at their campuses on the economic future of nanotechnology.
But of that large group, Uldrich said only Ihlenfeldt had put a plan into action and built a nano facility. Only when a vision is turned into action do you change the world, the consultant said.
Partnerships, a hallmark of Dr. Ihlenfeldt’s 13 years as CVTC president, are the stuff of progress, he told the gathering of 200. Later Jeff Halloin, a principal in the Gateway Technology Park that donated land to CVTC for the facility, said the “Chippewa Valley does partnerships very well.”
Although western Wisconsin doesn’t have a research university, cooperation with intellectual talent like Dr. Forest Schultz of University of Wisconsin-Stout, and Dr. Doug Dunham of the UW-Eau Claire, and Hans Mikelson and Dr. John Wagner of CVTC will achieve the same or more, Ihlenfeldt said.
Wagner only recently left the top technical post at Cray Computer to join the CVTC Nanoscience Technology faculty.
NanoRite’s first tenant is OEM Micro, a unit of OEM Fabricators of Woodville. OEM, a rapidly growing machine shop, has embarked on the new venture to address opportunities arising from the concentration of Twin Cities manufacturers of medical devices. Other tenants are now sought and Ihlenfeldt said two prospects might convert soon.
Micromachining, a technology that employs Swiss Screw machinery with its ultrafine cutting and fast spindle speeds, is one of the three major technology groups in NanoRite. Microfabrication, including photoetching, is another. Nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter at the molecular level, is the third.
The Eau Claire County Board and the Eau Claire City Council and numerous other organizations public and private helped fund the Center. “We need jobs and a growing tax base,” said Kerry Kincaid of the latter.
“I see a Nano Valley some day,” she said.
