There was much talk at a recent conference in Winston-Salem about the expansion of biotechnology initiatives across the state. Could that hurt the Triangle?

Zuiches: It just adds critical mass. The best example is the North Carolina Research Center campus in Kannapolis. While there are some concerns on the part of faculty that it's not close to a campus, I've had success over the years in hiring good scientists at outlying research centers.

Hayes: I may have a bit of a contrarian view. We often cite North Carolina as third in the nation in biotechnology. But if you drew a circle 35 miles from where we sit and just counted that, we would still be third. This is where the focus is, and there is some strategy about how you cluster different economies. We do run a risk of trying to disperse things too much. Time will tell.

Zuiches: This is going to add huge capacity to this state. There has been much talk that we do not have a high level of drug development compared with California and New York and other states. Having the Kannapolis campus, having the work going on at N.C. Central, gives us an opportunity to increase that. I don't think it will come at our cost.

Hayes: The question is, is North Carolina geographically small enough to have a cluster and yet still disperse it throughout the state? Or would it have been a better strategy to say, 'OK, in certain regions of the state we're going to focus on biotechnology. In other regions, we're going to focus on advanced racing. In others, we're going to focus on boat building.' The research campus is a good example, and I hope it succeeds. Certainly the biodiversity in the western part of the state lends some attractiveness that's not here, as does the coast with marine sciences.

Zuiches: There are competitive advantages in different parts of the state. We're involved in the Marine Sciences Center with UNC Wilmington and East Carolina University. We're involved in the Western Regions Center on natural products. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center tries to find each region's natural competitive advantage so that we can all help the biotech revolution within the state. I respectfully disagree. This is going to be beneficial to all of us.

Hayes: I didn't say it wasn't going to be. I said time will tell.

Zuiches: Time will tell, because for so many years we talked cluster, cluster, cluster, and right now we're still talking clusters. Only the clusters are statewide.

Hayes: It makes sense when we say, 'OK, agricultural biotechnology, we're going to cluster that at X place, and marine biotechnology and life sciences, we're going to do that at Y.' But if we try to diffuse it, we could weaken it.

"The question is, is this a strategy that will strengthen the state?"

Zuiches: The strength is in the networking. We don't have the capacity at N.C. State to do all the work. We have to partner with the folks down at Wilmington and ECU because they've got real strength in marine sciences. And it's in that networking that we're going to all be stronger rather than just saying, 'Well, you do it only, and don't call us.'

Atkinson: It's unrealistic to assume that every county has the same potential, but let me assure you, every county has something that it can do uniquely or do in partnership with its neighboring counties that is a plus. I don't think you ought to ever view it as competition between the Research Triangle region and other parts of the state when it all comes down to what's good for North Carolina.

Hayes: I agree with that 100%. The question is, is this a good strategy that will strengthen the state of North Carolina? The conventional wisdom is that it is, and I hope it is. But I think time will tell.

Greczyn: With communication today, we can think in terms of virtual clusters and spread a little more across the state. But it's going to be a while before we see a lot of marine research being done in Asheville.

Zuiches: But there is some boat building taking place in Asheville.

How difficult is it to extend prosperity throughout the Triangle region?

Hayes: The farther from Research Triangle Park and Raleigh-Durham International Airport, the more difficult it is. Novozymes is certainly a success story in Franklin County. But it is more difficult when you get to Vance or Warren counties. They have to have different strategies. The southern counties - Moore, Lee and Harnett particularly - also have a different strategy.

Hansen: I was at the biofuel center opening in Oxford. That speaks to the fact that things are moving out of RTP. They turned an old tobacco-research facility into a biofuel- research center, which is different from high-end drug development or high-end, small-scale manufacturing, where you need some of the more Ph.D.-level guys.

Greczyn: There has been job growth in all 13 counties in the region. Things grow out in concentric circles, where you have companies pushing out of the central core. As it happens, it makes it attractive for people to live in the outlying rural areas where maybe the dollar goes a little further in buying land and a house, and yet they can come in to their job. How gas prices will affect that is sort of a wild card.

Zuiches: There is an element in the region's strategic plan that really is important, and it is that higher education is involved. One of the things we brag about is the nonwovens research program and the connection it has had to economic development across the region. The great example is Vescom America locating in Vance County. It's a factory, but the research is going on in the Triangle. We just need to identify those stories and find out what worked for them. We can then help other companies locate and grow in these rural areas.

Atkinson: In health care, we see a larger and larger percentage of patients who are traveling into the cities for care. Part of that is just driven by the cost of technology and the coverage. But what we're also seeing is more people come to work in health care or work in other industries. Many times they want to live not so much in the cities but in the surrounding areas.

Does that make them just bedroom communities?

Atkinson: We've seen some companies that specifically want to be away from the cities because of the cost of materials or they wanted more space or they just couldn't develop what they wanted to from scratch. A classic example is what's happening around the military ramp-up. It's more around Fort Bragg and then reaching out from there toward Raleigh because of the ties to UNC and Duke and N.C. State and N.C. Central. They're sort of driving some of the think- tank activity around materials and supplies and overall computerization that's occurring in the military.

Lars, as a newcomer, what do you see in Franklin County?

Hansen: Our company developed the site here from being strictly manufacturing to also being a research-and-development site, which reflects nicely what has been going on in the region. We are recruiting from the universities here. We are bringing in a lot of people from overseas as well as recruiting from all over the U.S. We can accommodate white-collar jobs as well as blue-collar jobs, which is different from where we started 30 years ago.

Are the universities and the research going on at them still the biggest drivers of the region's economy?

Greczyn: I'm not sure you can say that there's one biggest driver. We're very fortunate to have four or five universities in a small geographic region. There has been a real commitment from the 13 counties in the region to work together. World-class medical centers bracket the area. Those things add up. Success breeds success.

Atkinson: The higher-education elements - not only State and Duke and UNC, but N.C. Central and East Carolina and other universities - certainly influence a lot that's happening. But you also have to take that further on down to the pre-school and the K-12 system, because an awful lot of people - regardless of their income level or job - consider education to be a key reason they want to be here. The universities are far more predictable because of the resources that go there. It has been a little more spotty in some counties, especially rural counties.

Yates: The jobs that are here are high-paying, and they allow an excellent quality of life. That's going to continue to attract people.

Zuiches: I came two years ago from Washington state. I was aware of N.C. State and Chapel Hill and Duke. But until you come, you don't realize the partnerships here and the resources that are committed to economic development.

Do you have any examples?

Zuiches: One thing that amazes me is the Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center at N.C. State. It's basically a training program for people who are going to work for Novozymes and similar companies. The same is true for the Biomanufacturing Research Institute & Technology Enterprise at N.C. Central. We're training the workers who are going into those companies as scientists, not Ph.D.-level scientists but well-qualified research scientists.

Hayes: BTEC is training people for the biotechnology industry. Novozymes and Biogen Idec were two of the architects of that. This program was based on what the industry said it wanted. That shows the partnership with education and business. That's one of the things that gives this region a competitive advantage.

Hansen: I just moved here from Tokyo. You get a lot of square footage over here for the same amount of money. A lot of my colleagues are using any means to get a job in this part of our organization. And with the currency situation being as it is, it is very cheap to live in the United States. The dollar - or the euro - goes a long way.

"A lot of my colleagues are using any means to get a job here."

Is transportation in the region keeping up with the growth that's coming in?

Atkinson: Folks here have engaged in the questions around transportation, and there seem to be differences related to needs in Chapel Hill and Durham and Raleigh. We clearly are going to have to do something about the roads and mass transit. But that's going to have to be measured because the price tag is massive.

Greczyn: We have to be sure that we don't allow ourselves to fall behind on it, because that's already happened once. A lot of what's going on today is trying to catch up with North Carolina's old reputation as the Good Roads State. We need to make sure we're far enough ahead, because these projects take 10 years to complete once you get them going.

Atkinson: The same quality measures need to be applied to public projects as in the private sector. If we're going to build them, they need to be done right the first time. Measure twice, cut once is the carpenter rule. When we do pull the trigger on whatever transportation we do, we just want to make sure that it's well thought out. That's why a little bit of time is OK.

Greczyn: But it's really hard for government to fund the future. Getting elected and trying to balance the budget are more focused on today.

Yates: A positive sign is the airport, which is ready to build a new terminal and renovate the existing one. Someone has thought way ahead and put the right investment in. Flying in and out of Raleigh versus some of the other cities that I go to, you learn to appreciate this airport.

Greczyn: I have to give Lee County credit, because when it built a new general-aviation airport for single-engine planes, it put it halfway between Cary and Sanford. It has pulled people from here because of cheaper hangar space.

Hayes: In transportation, we have a competitive advantage. A lot of our competitor regions are where we were 10 and 20 years ago, but if we don't do the things that have been said, we won't keep that advantage. And you can't just do it immediately. You have to plan.

Zuiches: We know what the population projections are - 2.5% a year. So the public/private partnership has got to push improvement in the infrastructure, especially transportation. We need to start making some difficult decisions about investing.

Hansen: I'm just the foreigner coming in, but it's a little bit against the American way of life to think too much about public transportation. It's going to be a bit of a challenge to get something really working where you move a lot of people around on monorails or buses or trains. I just don't see it in an area that's this large. You really have to put in a lot of thinking to make that work.

Greczyn: And to make sure it's financially viable.

Hansen: Yes. Have you heard of any places as spread out as the Triangle where it actually ends up working? I see it in Singapore. I see it in Tokyo. But in a region that's growing as fast as this one is, with subdivisions and small towns popping up here and there, how do you get those people connected? Are there any cities in the U.S. where they've actually done it?

"For so many years, we talked about cluster, cluster, cluster. Only the clusters are now statewide."

Greczyn: The early returns in Charlotte are that the only things that they underbuilt are the parking lots.

Does the region have other infrastructure needs?

Yates: There's a huge demand for energy. More people are moving here, and they're building bigger homes. We did a study, and the average size of a home in this area increased more than 50% in the last 25 years, going from about 1,600 square feet to slightly over 2,500 square feet.

Hansen: The average size is 2,500?

Yates: Now, start thinking about what's in those homes - flat-screen TVs, everybody's plugging in cell phones, computers, DVRs. We're seeing electricity demand grow 2% to 2.5% every year. Now think about where we are with energy. A barrel of oil has gone from probably $40 or $50 three years ago to $135 or more. Natural gas has more than doubled, and the price of coal has more than doubled. There's this potential carbon legislation. Nobody wants to pollute the air or burn coal. We're trying to figure out how to put in carbon-free energy infrastructure.

Greczyn: Novozymes is going to be a leader in second-generation biofuels. There are other areas where I'm not sure we really engage in fact-based decision-making, particularly when we're trying to generate energy. Often we have ended up expending more energy than we've generated. We're going to have to decide whether clean coal technology is actually an oxymoron or a reality. We're going to have more nuclear generation. There's more nuclear generation in Europe than there is here. We need to be more realistic in our approach.

Yates: One of the things we're working on with N.C. State and the governor that will be a big breakthrough is electric cars. We believe combining nuclear power with plug-in electric cars gets us off our dependency on foreign oil, eliminates pollution and allows us to continue our way of life. We're investing a fair amount in electric cars.

Where does the region stand with its water supply?

Atkinson: My wife and I spent 11 years in Denver, and all political decisions in that part of the world are based around water. People are not used to that here. Part of the way water has been managed in the West is as simple as how you do your landscaping. We've got places such as N.C. State that can help with that. And when you build buildings, are they energy efficient? That is not only about pure energy as we traditionally think about it but water, too.

Greczyn: What the drought did is get everybody thinking about these issues. I live in Cary, and we've had water restrictions for years. We need to make sure that we're planning around our water supply and what's the right level to keep Falls Lake at versus the right level to keep Jordan Lake at and our other water supplies.

Hansen: Natural resources, energy or water, are extremely cheap in the U.S. Compare the cost of a kilowatt hour here to a kilowatt hour in Copenhagen, where I'm from. So we have a natural inclination over there to build houses that are not 2,500 square feet and that are insulated and energy efficient.

Does that stifle growth?

Hansen: Denmark is one of the best-moving economies in Europe, and we are using less energy than we did 30 years ago. We have been able to decouple economic growth from energy consumption. It can be done using all kinds of technologies. But you have to get people motivated. Now that we see $4 a gallon for gas in the U.S., it makes people motivated to appreciate these things.

Greczyn: It's $10 a gallon in Europe now for diesel. About 65% of that $10 a gallon is tax.

Hansen: It's fact that the tax word doesn't ring very true over here, but it is one of the ways to get people to change behavior. It's a completely different model of society. I don't think we can transform the Scandinavian model to the U.S. anytime soon, and I don't think it's the right thing to do. But it's interesting to think about what drives behavior. Technology, of course, is part of it, but money is a big driver for all of us.

Where does the state stand with its education problems?

Greczyn: I don't understand why it's OK to drop out of school at 16. They should have to go to school until they're 18. I'm on the board of a new schools project funded by the Gates Foundation that calls for smaller high schools.

Is it as simple as smaller schools?

Greczyn: Our colleges and universities - and I'm board chairman at East Carolina - need to change the way we educate teachers. And as long as we pay teachers the same regardless of how they perform, we're going to have a system that doesn't perform to the standards we can achieve. I don't think any business in this room pays all employees the same regardless of performance.

Zuiches: We could pass a law that says you have to stay in school until 18, but there still has to be a reason why they stay in school.

Greczyn: But until we do change the expectation, we're doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome. It's not going to work.

Yates: We have to make high school somewhere they want to be. Are there some nontraditional high schools we could come up with - trade and technical schools - where maybe they're more hands-on oriented, that would make them want to get a different education than the people who are being pointed toward the university system?

"We have to make sure we create an environment where teachers stay excited about what they do."

Greczyn: It's also really important that we start teaching our kids how to think and not just teaching them how to take a test that gets them passed from one grade to another. My kids - kids that have every advantage - can't do math in their heads because they've been trained to be dependent on a calculator.

Hayes: One thing that hasn't been said is that we don't recruit the best and brightest to go into education. Certainly there are exceptions. But, typically, if you want to go to work with any major companies, they look for a 3.0 grade-point average coming out of college and what courses you took. To go into the education field, you just have to stumble through the door.

Greczyn: I'm glad you said that.

Hayes: You go to work with one of our major financial institutions with a 2.0 GPA, I don't think they'll hire you. But you go to work to be a teacher with a 2.0, 'We need them. Yeah, great. Wonderful. Bring them on.' And that's it. Somehow, we need to make education a choice of what people want to do.

How do you do that?

Hayes: The simple thing is pay them more. You start off as a K-12 teacher in this state making around $25,000, $26,000 a year. That's not a lot.

Atkinson: There are some great people in education, and we owe them a lot because they've pretty much given away wealth and other things to be in that setting. It ought not be the equivalent of a missionary call to be a teacher.

Yates: There's pay, and there's respect. We don't do that as a society anymore. When our children talk about wanting to be teachers, I'm not sure we encourage that. In our minds, you won't be financially advantaged if you become a teacher.

Greczyn: We have to make sure we create an environment where teachers stay excited about what they do over a 30-year career, and we don't put them in an environment where they're there for five or six years and start saying, 'Everybody gets paid the same. I don't really have to do everything that I've been doing because there's really no advantage for me to do that.' You create a system that generates exactly what you would expect - less than an optimal result.