The Role of the Pittsburgh High Tech Council

The Pittsburgh High Technology Council was formed in 1983 primarily in order to support the growth of southwestern Pennsylvania’s technological industry. Various community and technology leaders realized that their city was in dire need of a new industry for the future to replace the heavily relied on collapsed steel industry of the past. The steel industry, which was particularly hard hit by foreign imports and the relocation of domestic mills, caused tens of thousands of union jobs to be lost, causing Pittsburgh’s workforce to drop from 41,500 in 1979 to 19,000 in 1983. When U.S. Steel announced the full or partial closing of 28 facilities in the United States in late 1983, some Pittsburgh areas watched unemployment soar to the double digits.

The leaders in the communities realized that they needed to act immediately to save their economy. The leaders gathered to promote new tech firms to start their businesses in Pittsburgh and to encourage Pittsburgh’s current tech leaders to stay in the city and expand their operations. The Council moved swiftly and strongly after Governor Dick Thornburgh pioneered a program in 1983 aiming to assist new and expanding businesses, entitled the Ben Franklin Partnership. Throughout their 22-year journey, the Pittsburgh High Technology Council has continued to work towards their initial goal of promoting growth in Pittsburgh’s technological sector, and has enjoyed watching a number of their programs and policies prosper while at the same time keeping their eyes open to obstacles the city of Pittsburgh encounters and implementing programs to help overcome such issues in order to continue striving forward.

The Council’s formation in 1983, along with the Ben Franklin Partnership, marked the birth of the region’s technology sector. The Council, after naming Tim Parks as their first Executive Director, immediately implemented their services to the four core principal regional networks of technology- IT, Biomedical, Environmental, and Advanced Manufacturing. Participating in the Council’s networks initially provided members with a variety of beneficial experiences; it provided an opportunity to create a higher profile through word-of-mouth advertising, a chance to meet their peers in their own network sector as well as the other sectors in order to promote free thinking and collaboration, and it allowed for bolstering management skills and industry expertise by attending the monthly and yearly conferences. The Council’s first Membership Directory, published in 1984, featured Pittsburgh’s 140 industry and support members.

While the Council was initially successful in fostering communication within the industry, the city was still losing many of their skilled employees to other cities. An article from the June 1985 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette argues, “Okay Pittsburgh, We’re losing some Pirate and Steeler Fans. Why?” it responds, “Because many electronics technology graduates go someplace else for a job.” (1) The article supports this position by citing a statistic from the recent graduating class from the University of Pittsburgh; of the 28 electronic technicians that graduated from Pitt in 1985, 25 were employed and 20 went somewhere outside of Pittsburgh for their employment (1). The problems pointed out in the article show that Pittsburgh faced two major problems in the mid-1980s. First, the University of Pittsburgh, by far the largest University in the city of Pittsburgh, should be graduating many more than 28 capable electronic technicians. Second, the city of Pittsburgh desperately needed to find a way to incorporate their skilled laborers into their workforce.

The Pittsburgh High Technology Council realized that their programs needed to expand in order to foster education in technological fields as well as to expand the tech sector in Pittsburgh so that the city does not lose their brain power to other states. It was crucial that they simultaneously enacted these programs. Otherwise, the city would be educating their youth and then losing their brain power to technologically advanced states, including California, Florida, and Texas. The Council, with help from tech pioneer Carnegie Mellon University, responded by developing outreach programs filled with competitions where prizes were awarded to high school students in the area who showed innovative engineering ideas and displayed a proficiency in the high-tech sector. At the same time, the Council gave additional incentives for non-members to join and for members to stay, including insurance coverage as well as tuition discounts.

These two policies became effective immediately and proved to be a great success over the years. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Press records from the mid-1980’s show just how great of an impact the technology sector was having in the community. By skimming through the articles we encounter a myriad of optimistic titles about the growth and expansion of the techsector in Pittsburgh. To name just a few, the articles proclaimed, “Pittsburgh’s off on a spin as high-tech firms multiply”, “Oakland Rich in High-tech Firms”, “City companies expecting boost in high-tech jobs”, “New Firms cut teeth on tech center’s aid”, “Survey finds high-tech sales, jobs here booming”, “High Tech firms lead job growth, study says”, and so on.

Pittsburgh students previously accustomed to finding employment elsewhere were now considering other options. While the top Universities in Pittsburgh were sponsoring educational workshops, projects, and connecting tech firms with students through job fairs, the high schools took initiative to foster and promote the growth of scientific knowledge by boosting their curriculum with technically advanced classes (2). Students attending Pittsburgh’s schools were now able to pursue their fields of interest much earlier than previously possible. This, in turn, turned students on to the idea that they could indeed attain a valuable higher education in their own city. The cities highly advanced students had the opportunity to attend Pittsburgh’s prestigious Carnegie Mellon University, a national leader in engineering and the sciences. Others had the opportunity for higher education at the University of Pittsburgh, a large, well-respected University which provided a much cheaper education than the private schools. Retaining their students in the city from high school to college opened the door for growth as students became the employees and eventually the entrepreneurial leaders of Pittsburgh.

In 1985 the Pittsburgh Press reported on a recent University of Pittsburgh graduate specialized in technology to show his decision process in choosing an employer. Dale Mancini graduated in the top of his class and had his options open to where he wanted to work. Dale received three offers from high-tech firms willing to hire Dale immediately upon graduation. However, Dale refused all three offers since they were all from outside areas. When the paper asked why he would refuse all the offers he had, Dale argued, “I really want to stay in the city [Pittsburgh] and be a part of the technology boom. I just hope I didn’t make a mistake”. (3) Dale’s story serves to show the new attitude of Pittsburgh students; rather than leaving and heading for known hot-spots such as the Silicon Valley, the students were expressing a desire to stay and be a part of their cities growth and expansion. The statistics from 1985 show that over the past 2 years, 40,000 new jobs have been created as the high-tech firm count in the city reached an unprecedented count of 415.

As the Council’s membership numbers soared and as tech firms were blossoming, the need for affiliate organizations became evident. The Southwestern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Center (SPIRC) was established in 1988 as one of seven Industrial Resource Centers across the state charged with helping small to medium-sized manufacturers improve operations, train their workforce and improve quality. SPIRC became an affiliate organization of the Council, sharing their resources and mixing their top personnel between the two companies. A little more than a year after the formation of SPIRC, the Council established the Pittsburgh Biomedical Development Corporation (PBDC). The PBDC was primarily in charge of providing initial capital needed for regional biotechnology startups. PBDC’s investment activity has played a key role in the advancement of some of the region’s most well-known life science companies. Their success has been growing over the years and returns are consistently amassing, allowing PBDC to continue investing in Pittsburgh’s newest startups.
The roaring 90’s spurred the creation of crucial initiatives by the Council, helping Pittsburgh technology reach a new plateau. The launch of the Council’s first website created a plethora of opportunity for expansion and development. The website, www.pghtech.org, has paved the way for the full integration of all the members with each other and with all the staff on the Council. The site has allowed for a simpler mode of communication between the various business sectors, which has led to increased collaboration. The site has also provided a much simpler route for announcements to be made by the Council and received by the members. Perhaps the most significant feature of the site, though, is that it has become a primary access tool for employers seeking employees and vice-versa. In this way, the website has become the monster.com of the Pittsburgh technology world and has been solely responsible for linking thousands of high tech jobs.

In addition to the website, the roaring 90’s necessitated the Council’s move to a bigger and more involved location. The Council moved from the isolated location in Oakland to the center of the Pittsburgh Technology Center in Hazelwood. This change of venue assists the Council in further assimilating themselves into the community to promote membership recruitment as well as to facilitate visits from its current members.

When the PHTC named their second-ever Executive Director Ray Christman as successor to Tim Parks in 1996, they were immediately presented with a novel and exciting idea. Christman proposed the introduction of the “Pittsburgh Technology 50 Awards” in 1996, and the Council supported it so strongly that by 1997 it became a premier event. The Tech 50 Awards honor the 50 fastest-growing and most innovative and successful companies in the IT, life sciences, and advanced manufacturing sectors, as well as honoring rising stars. The most prestigious award, given to only one man annually, is the highly coveted “CEO of the Year”. The Tech 50 Awards helped put the workers behind the tech sector in the public eye, so that rather than ‘riding the tech wave’ of the 90’s, the public is able to actually get into the wave and learn about the individuals making the difference. Christman’s Tech 50 Awards galvanized competition between the companies and the CEO’s to outdo each other. The overall winners from the awards, though, emerging year after year, continues to be the city of Pittsburgh’s economy and its citizens.

In his four years in office, Christman became a highly-revered leader of the community, being named one of the “Pittsburghers of the Century” by Pittsburgh Magazine in 2000. After a short but successful stint as the director of the PHTC, Christman stepped down to take a job as the President of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta in. His successor Stephen Zylstra, the third official director of the PHTC, was named in March of 2000 and has remained as director of the Council to the present day.
Throughout his five years as the director, Zylstra has enjoyed watching the Council grow to a membership rate of over 1,800. Their continuing expansion has been a direct result from their ever-increasing programs and policies. In early 2000 Zylstra decided to change the name of the Council from the Pittsburgh High Technology Council to the Pittsburgh Technology Council. Zylstra wanted to expand the Council’s membership base and felt that “High Tech” was not inclusive enough.
Zylstra and the Council have recently expanded their entrepreneurial outreach by developing the Entrepreneurs Peer Network. The Network is designed to strengthen professional entrepreneurial relationships and encourage collaboration to produce unique and exciting ideas. The Council feels that entrepreneurial success is a vital component to the future success of the tech industry in Pittsburgh and will focus many of their future initiatives on encouraging new endeavors.

Zylstra has been focusing on public policy over his last five years in office as it has become a vital concern to the members. The local, state, and federal taxes and the regulatory issues have become burdensome on the tech leaders and the members of the community. The Council has realized that they need to strongly advocate their position to the government if they hope to keep the existing businesses in Pittsburgh and if they expect to encourage businesses to move into Pittsburgh. Thus far, the Council has been successful in eliminating the state computer sales tax as well as the state capital stock and franchise tax. In addition, it has been successful in extending the net operating loss tax credit carry-forward period from 10 to 20 years and has helped in extending Pennsylvania’s research and development tax credit until 2008. Furthermore, the Council has fought to continue state funding for the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority (previously the Ben Franklin Partnership) as well as the Pennsylvania Technology Investment Authority, which invests heavily in technology development.

Meanwhile, the Council continues to build on the success of the website by improving the existing programs and implementing new user-friendly software. The Career Center continues to have resounding success. It is constantly being filled with open technology positions from within the region and resumes from jobseekers. The site receives, on average, an astounding 2.4 million hits with 253,000 page views each month.

Workforce education has remained a top priority of the Council over the years. The Council is currently working in collaboration with Catalyst Connection, another Zylstra-led operation whose mission is quite similar to the PHTC’s mission. Simply stated, their mission statement is, “We advance the performance of manufacturing and production companies.” Working with Catalyst Connection, the groups are collaboratively assisting communication between the manufacturing and technology industry and the education and workforce development sectors. They are working together to promote and enhance technical skills in the region for the present and the future.