Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire arrived for a meeting with The Spokesman-Review’s editorial board on Tuesday with a wide smile on her face, having just witnessed the adjournment of what she considers a highly successful legislative session.

She left an hour later with a grimace, having just learned that Spokane’s HollisterStier Laboratories LLC had been sold to an Indian company, Jubilant Organosys.

HollisterStier, a maker of allergy treatment products and a contract manufacturer of pharmaceutical products, has been a star performer in Spokane’s economic constellation of late. Its work force is growing by 40 to 50 employees a year. It has logged 40 percent annual growth over the past five years and is engaged in a $30 million expansion, including a new laboratory-office addition. Last year, for the first time in its history, it added a second production shift.

All that, of course, underscores the potential that induced Jubilant to pay $122.5 million for the Spokane concern.

It also explains the high praise Gregoire heaped upon HollisterStier during a January visit when she declared, “Nothing on the West Side compares with what you do here.”

So, in spite of assurances that the company’s management team will stay in place and one of the county’s largest manufacturing concerns will continue to operate as it has, a certain amount of anxiety is understandable. Spokane has too much experience with what happens when corporate decision-making moves from here to a distant board room that has no other ties to the community.

It is reassuring, of course, to remember that HollisterStier was an attractive acquisition because of its success. With so much positive momentum at work, there is reason to expect that the 80-year-old business will continue to make a strong contribution to the local economy for years to come, regardless of where ownership and control are situated.

But the sale that made the governor and others wince is a reminder that Spokane has to keep up the pressure to encourage development of new success stories, cultivated in Spokane’s own innovative soil.

Fortunately, much of that is happening.

As an example, Sirti is working at capacity in both of its buildings on the Riverpoint campus at the east end of downtown Spokane. It’s also working with more than two dozen off-campus clients. Sirti’s administration has made a commitment to beefing up the entrepreneurial expertise that’s available to help start-up efforts put sound business and marketing strategies in place, secure capital and obtain patents.

In short, do what Gregoire commended HollisterStier for doing during her January visit: turn research into “products and jobs.”

That’s what was needed to keep a smile on the governor’s face and a lot of others’ as well.