Paul Alexander looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
He was at the State House last Tuesday afternoon for a ceremony in which four Rhode Island companies received a share of $223,408 in Samuel Slater Technology Fund Innovation Partnership Program grants.
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Alexander’s company, FRW, Inc., a technology development corporation in West Warwick, was one of the companies. FRW stands for “flat ribbon weavers.” The company manufactures high-tech plastic pipe. FRW principals are the developers of a patented process to weave or “interlace” ribbons made of thermoplastic composite materials into seamless tubular formats, such as pipe, poles and tanks.
So there was Alexander, soaking up every second of the festivities that played out in the State Room on the second floor of the State House.
He brought his 10-year-old daughter Abby along. She read a little from a book about ghost stories. She listened to some speeches from state officials. She even met the governor. That was important to Alexander. In a sense, the whole afternoon served as an affirmation that his hard work was beginning to pay off.
FRW received an award of $23,850 to be used to help pay for a national and international product marketing campaign. But to Alexander, the Slater grant was about so much more than money.
“This is a sense of recognition,” said Alexander. “It’s like that cliché, about starting out in a garage. We started in buildings without heat. You have to say goodbye to your little ones every day and not be there for bath time. But then something you believe in catches fire and people want to invest. Once the snowball begins to run downhill, a lot begins to happen.”
The other technology-based companies sharing the Slater grants include Kingston Biocontrol of Richmond; Engineered Products Consortium of Providence; and Cherry Semiconductor of East Greenwich.
Kingston Biocontrol will use its $23,850 award to assist in payments for tests to develop a device for tick control on deer and livestock. Engineered Products Consortium will spend its $125,000 award on design control systems projects aimed at streamlining manufacturing processes.
Cherry Semiconductor is working in conjunction with the University of Rhode Island and will use a $49,644 award to develop a laboratory, which will be used for training programs and for electronic product and circuit testing.
The Rhode Island Economic Policy Council, in conjunction with the Economic Development Corporation, began administering the Slater Technology Fund in 1997 as part of a strategy to enhance the state’s economy.
The fund provides public sector investments to industry-led collaborative activities in Rhode Island, including the state-funded Research Centers of Excellence. Money is provided on a matching, cost-reimbursement basis to selected private and/or non-profit companies to increase competitiveness through technology innovation.
Gov. Lincoln Almond said technology-based companies represent the state’s future.
“We need to build a more diversified economy,” said Almond. “That’s exactly what we are doing. This is all about investing in the industries of the future.”
Christopher “Kip” Bergstrom, executive director of the Economic Policy Council, said that 19 companies were in the running for this latest round of Slater grants. He said the state is committed to such technology companies because their success is so often “time consuming and expensive.” It takes patient investment, he said, where the rewards are often seen five or ten years down the road.
“School can’t do it alone,” said Bergstrom.
Almond pointed out that the “New Economy,” of which technology-based companies are such an integral part, crosses all borders. Kingston Biocontrol, he said, was a perfect example.
“The New Economy has even reached Wood River Junction,” said Almond. “Some of you probably haven’t heard of Wood River Junction.”
