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Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 10/1/07 |
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In
the News Archive - Year:
December 18, 2003 Paper industry may get boost from feds Plan will create new research facility for area By John Dipko, Press-Gazette Madison bureau A proposed federal spending bill scheduled for U.S. Senate action next
month includes $500,000 in grant funding to help the University of Wisconsin-Green
Bay establish a research facility centered on new paper-related technologies.
The paper industry has a nearly $17 billion-a-year impact in Wisconsin
but has lost 9,000 jobs over the past three years, according to the Wisconsin
Paper Council, a Neenah-based trade organization. Paper and allied industries
employ about 50,000 people in the state.
"The thinking is that traditional paper is not going to be an area of
economic growth," UW-Green Bay Chancellor Bruce Shepard said.
"Ownership is moving abroad. We're not seeing capital investment in
keeping traditional paper here. But we've seen an explosion in manufacturing
in areas like high-tech paper and non-woven paper products. That looks
to be the future growth in the paper industry."
The center, advocated chiefly by U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Green Bay,
would develop exclusive new products or processes that can be transferred
to the private sector for commercialization.
The funding, included in the $820 billion omnibus spending bill that
the U.S. House passed Dec. 8, would cover costs for personnel and resources
to weigh community interest in the center and devise a business plan,
Shepard said.
Paper council President Patrick Schillinger said anything that can be
done to improve technological advances in the paper industry in Wisconsin
would be beneficial.
"That's an opportunity for our mills to be competitive by creating new
products in the paper industry," he said.
Shepard said key players would include industries, UW-Green Bay, Northeast
Wisconsin Technical College, UW-Stevens Point and its paper technology
program, the Energy Center of Wisconsin, the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory
and the WiSys Technology Foundation Inc., which supports research and
educational programs at various UW campuses.
Location for the center remains uncertain, but leaders are considering
somewhere downtown rather than at the UW-Green Bay campus on the city's
far east side.
"It might be a good idea to have it downtown and closer to traditional
paper, and it also would help us have a more visible presence at the center
of Green Bay," Shepard said. "There have been no decisions, but I think
that could have a lot of promise."
The center would be an anchor that lets paper companies not only improve
what they do but also form start-up companies dedicated to commercializing
the research, said Tom Still, director of the Wisconsin Technology Council.
Biotechnology research in places like UW-Madison, a top research institution,
has helped make bioscience one of the fastest-growing industries in Wisconsin,
according to a recent report by the Wisconsin Association for Biomedical
Research and Education.
The state's 248 bioscience companies employed more than 19,000 workers
and generated nearly $5 billion in sales in 2002, the report said.
"What we need to develop around the state are clusters for industries
where a lot of people invest, and working together to cement the paper
cluster is an important event," Still said.
Green spokesman Chris Tuttle said the lawmaker remains a chief supporter
of the project even though he voted last week against the spending bill,
as did 37 other GOP representatives. The measure passed 242-176.
"There was a lot of stuff in the bill that Mark didn't like, and does
he regret having to vote against a bill that contained a lot of good things
in the area? Yes he does," Tuttle said.
The funding will need to clear the U.S. Senate and be in the final spending
bill signed by President Bush. The Senate is expected to take up the bill
in late January.
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