Guest opinion: Sirti transition to Innovate Washington honors Momentum visionaries

In the 1980s, the United States and the Inland Northwest were suffering the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. Around the nation, factory jobs disappeared, unemployment climbed to alarming levels, and inflation soared. Hardest hit were the industrial Midwest and the natural resources-based economy of the Pacific Northwest.

In response, our community rallied around the vision and leadership of a group called “Momentum” that set in motion a series of initiatives intended to position our region to capitalize on its assets, adjust tactics as dictated by the economic environment and weather future economic events by developing a more diversified economy.

To be sure, the economy of 2011 is still recovering from the throes of unprecedented recession. Public and private sector leaders are adjusting strategy to recover more competitively as the economy establishes a new normal. Consistent with the dictates of the new economic environment and with the demand to retain the U.S. innovation edge, local business accelerator Sirti becomes Innovate Washington on Aug. 1 by joining forces with the Washington Technology Center. The new organization will pursue a statewide mission based, in part, on Sirti’s success in our region. Moreover, the new public-private partnership is charged with leveraging Washington’s competitive assets in the clean-energy sector to achieve sustainable job growth.

The mission is to make Washington the best place to launch innovations so ideas developed in Washington lead to quality jobs in Washington.

As we transition from Sirti to Innovate Washington, it is fitting to honor the dozens of civic-minded visionaries who have collectively, during and following Momentum, prepared our region to become a central player in the state’s innovation economy. Their efforts have also led to the beautiful urban academic center that is still developing in the University District, as well as what will soon be America’s next great academic health science center.

During the 1980s economic shift toward a knowledge-based economy, Momentum convened to shape the region’s economic destiny with intention, with foresight and with the leverage of the region’s extraordinary higher education assets. Among many initiatives sprouting from this effort was the idea of establishing a place where business ingenuity, university-based technology and public infrastructure helped technology entrepreneurs manage their startup risks and coalesce for greater economic results in our region. That place became known as Sirti.

Sirti was the first post-Expo ’74 building built on what is now the Riverpoint Campus. Partially in response to an increasing departure of private-sector research to larger metropolitan centers, the graduate education-centered initiatives of the Momentum effort have forever enriched our community and its surrounding economy. Sirti has been a launch point for more than 145 successful technology businesses. In the past 10 years, companies supported by Sirti have attracted $325 million in add-on investment, and in 2010 reported more than 1,725 quality jobs.

Without these efforts, our community would be a very different place today and, I assert, one looking at a very different future.

We honor the visionaries and now call on that same spirit of collaboration, foresight and innovative entrepreneurial spirit to bring prosperity to the entire state via Innovate Washington.