Technology Advances in Arkansas (Editorial)

Arkansas may be on its way to picking itself up by its economic bootstraps and building the technological utopia scientists and politicians dreamed of.

Consider what Northwest Arkansas tech-based businesses have done since Oct. 1:

Vision Technologies of Rogers landed part of a U.S. Navy contract worth “tens of millions” to build high-tech cameras.

Inc. of Fayetteville, a University of Arkansas Genesis Technology Incubator client, was awarded a $16.2 million contract by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to develop laser enabled satellite communications.

RFID Global Solutions of Rogers — a startup company — will get part of an $8.5 million contract as a U.S. Navy subcontractor to supply radio frequency identification technology to the Department of Defense.

Zeus Cal-Zark, also a Genesis client in Fayetteville, reeled in a $1.6 million contract with the Office of Naval Research to continue developing a medical evacuation vehicle.

Seemingly on a weekly basis, some tech company tucked away in a corner of the UA campus announces it has received a Small Business Innovation Research award that keeps it doing research and looking for commercial applications.

And to top it off, on Nov. 1, the Fayetteville City Council voted to sell BioBased Technologies and BioBased Systems about 19 acres of land for $940,000. The acreage, located on Cato Springs Road in south Fayetteville, will serve as a research and production campus for the company.

The companies are looking into replacing petroleum products with soybean oil in a variety of products from dashboards to carpet backing to foam insulation.

Steve Rust, president and CEO of the Fayetteville Economic Development Commission, helped coordinate the land purchase. He said the BioBased companies will eventually employ about 50 people, all with salaries in the $50,000-range — exactly the type of talent and jobs we want to attract to Arkansas.

And we have to applaud the BioBased visionaries. Tom Muccio, CEO of the companies, hopes to harness soybeans from south Arkansas to help drive that region’s agriculture-based economy while making a dent in foreign oil dependence as well as petroleum-related pollution.

A lot of great minds have joined the party in Northwest Arkansas. Many manage to marry the sometimes opposing forces of environmentalism and business.

We think they are all here because quality of life is good and they’re starting to see economic support from investors and the state. We think the continued pursuit of these great minds and the companies they foster will only ensure our communities and our economy will have still have that quality of life for our children and theirs.