GOED commissioner to address biotech economy at upcoming summit

The head of economic development for the state of South Dakota will share his perspective on the biotech industry at an upcoming industry event this month.

Nearly six months into his role as commissioner of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, Bill Even brings a varied background in agriculture and public sector leadership — with a focus on supporting business growth.

Even will join biotech innovators from across the state and beyond at the annual South Dakota Biotech Summit & Annual Meeting. The GOED commissioner will participate in a keynote fireside chat: “Vision for a Stronger Bioeconomy.”

The South Dakota Biotech Summit will be Oct. 27-28 at a new venue this year: The Catlin Hotel, formerly Hilton Garden Inn Downtown, at 201 E. Eighth St. For the full agenda and to register visit here.

“Both public and private sector leadership are critical to advancing this industry in our state, so we’re excited to welcome Bill Even and hear his perspective on how to grow our biotech economy,” said Joni Ekstrum, executive director of South Dakota Biotech.

We sat down with Even for a preview of the conversation.

In your first months as GOED commissioner, what have you been focused on?
I’ve done a lot of listening across the state, hearing about the needs of businesses and communities. No. 1 is that everyone I talk to wants to grow. They’ve got ideas, dreams, plans and visions. From there it’s about the role the state of South Dakota could play based on those needs, and sometimes it’s getting them in touch with someone who can help through various programs or other departments.

Understanding our prioritization is important: The first thing to do is make sure you’re retaining the businesses you have in the state, expand the ones you have here and then recruit and bring new companies and people into the state. I think about it in that order: Keep what you have, grow what you have and bring new businesses to the table.

Have you had conversations specifically around the bioscience industry?
I have. I recently visited the POET bioprocessing center in Brookings and have spent time with several of our universities to understand both what they’re working on from a research perspective as well as the talent we have coming out of the state. There’s exciting research underway, and I think we want to look at what it will take to get companies interested in it from an IP perspective and eventually scale it.

You have a background in agriculture, both as the former Secretary of Agriculture for the state as well as CEO for the National Pork Board in Des Moines. What kinds of opportunities do you see specifically in ag-related biosciences?
Current commodity prices are low, so we have to be thinking about what different uses or applications we might have for our crops in South Dakota. South Dakota was the launchpad for the nation’s renewable fuels industry through ethanol. We take it for granted, but go back 25 years and that was not a given. South Dakota farmers played in it, invested in the ethanol plants and fundamentally changed the landscape and the economics of rural South Dakota. We’re now becoming more of a production juggernaut, so we have to look at what to do with the products and some of that will be in the bioscience area and some will be in livestock development. We have great success stories in animal medicine and those are the things to replicate.

What message do you have for communities looking to grow the biotech sector?
One of the fundamental roles of government is to get the infrastructure in place so businesses can grow and expand — that could be power, roads, natural gas, water, but there also are needed related to things like specialized equipment in our tech schools and universities that are necessary to create an innovation pipeline. The state has recently done a comprehensive infrastructure assessment, so I’ll talk more about that at the South Dakota Biotech Summit, as well as how we need communities to be ready because when companies are ready to go they want to know infrastructure and workforce are available and trained. They don’t want to wait for a community or region to spend years getting ready.

To register for the South Dakota Biotech Summit, visit here.