WRAL Tech Wire

N.C.'s best economic news of 2008 – Murdock's Research Campus. But where are the honors?

David Murdock at a recent NCRC event. (NCRC photo)

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Billionaire David Murdock hardly needs The Skinny to boost his profile, but doggone it, he deserves more respect from his adopted state of North Carolina.

He’s our “Person of the Year,” hands down.

The man is building a second Research Triangle Park in the former textile town of Kannapolis. His $1.5 billion N.C. Research Campus, which opened last summer, is a “biopolis,” as he has described it, is a Taj Mahal.

Yet where are the awards and recognition for Murdock’s pioneering efforts?

Murdock didn’t receive one of the North Carolina Technology Association’s “21 Awards.” He didn’t win Ernst & Young’s “Carolinas Entrepreneur of the Year” award. In fact, the builder of the North Carolina Research Campus wasn’t even among the finalists. The Council for Entrepreneurial Development ought to recognize Murdock for what he is – one of the nation’s top entrepreneurs who happens to spend a lot of time focused on making North Carolina a better place to live.

So far, he hasn’t received a “Long Leaf Pine Award” from the state of North Carolina.

Word is, Gov. Mike Easley has never even bothered to visit the Research Campus, let alone extend the Pine Award to a man who is giving North Carolina’s knowledge economy such a significant boost.

Without a doubt, in The Skinny’s view, the opening of the Research Campus – with support and contributions from the state, the UNC System, N.C. State, Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte and other campuses as well as the private sector – was the best economic news for North Carolina in 2008.

If the various awards given by a lot of organizations across this great state are to have any credibility in the future, they had best recognize Murdock in 2009. Gov.-elect Bev Perdue, please make sure you make regular stops at the Research Campus, seek some economic development ideas from the owner of Dole Food – and give him a Pine award. He deserves it.

The Skinny

WRAL Local Tech Wire Publisher and Editor Rick Smith dishes out tidbits from the local technology sector. Read more articles…