Kevin Bouley has a vision for Tolland.
It’s a really big vision that may not be what many people would foresee for the bucolic, rural community of fewer than 16,000.
Bouley, the CEO of Nerac, a Tolland-based research and development advisory firm, wants to create a technology corridor in town that builds off the synergies of the research heft and intellectual capital at the University of Connecticut in nearby Storrs.
He’s not talking about a simple office space for a few tech start ups. He’s already started that.
Bouley wants to create Tolland’s own, distinct version of North Carolina’s Research Triangle or California’s Silicon Valley.
And he sees the recent approval of $170 million for the construction of a Technology Park at UConn as the potential tipping point for making it happen.
“I do have a vision for a much larger, robust linkage between the technology and innovation communities in Tolland and UConn that builds an economic engine for the future,” said Bouley, a wide-eyed, smooth talking, ambitious visionary. “It doesn’t have to be Cambridge Mass., or Silicon Valley. But it can occur wherever there is talent, innovative ideas, capital and a willingness to undertake some degree of risk. We want to be able to attract the best and brightest graduating from UConn and have them put down roots in Eastern Connecticut.”
Bouley’s vision for a technology corridor in Tolland didn’t blossom overnight. The UConn graduate has always sought close ties between his alma mater and the company he took over in 1999.
Nerac, which offers consulting and R&D services to top technology start-ups across the United States, was one of the first successful spinoff companies from UConn in the mid-1980’s, and Bouley maintains collaborative relationships with the engineering, business, and commercialization faculty at the school.
And first small sprouts of his vision already exist.
In the 34,000-square-foot building Nerac calls home at One Technology Drive, a healthy incubator community of about a half-dozen software startups has sprung up.
On the outside, the facility is an old, unremarkable industrial complex, but inside exists a maze of modern office space filled with collaborating entrepreneurs hoping to discover the next big thing.
They haven’t had their Google or Facebook breakthrough yet, but one company there — information technology services firm Open Sky — has expanded from 14 to 100 employees.
Bouley said he dedicated over 10,000 square feet of his building to tech startups because merely talking about a technology corridor wasn’t good enough.
“You don’t know where the conversations are going to lead,” Bouley said. “But if you give people a destination and a place to conduct those conversations you’ll get beneficial outcomes.”
Tolland officials see hope and economic development potential in a tech corridor as well. In fact, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in recent years to extend the sewer line along Rt. 195 — the main thoroughfare that connects Tolland and UConn’s main campus in Storrs — to put in place the necessary infrastructure for future development.
Town Manager Steven Werbner said Tolland’s Planning and Zoning Committee will begin to put its full focus on the development of a tech corridor as soon as the town’s Village Center project — an ambitious mixed-use development that aims to bring the first hotel to town — is complete.
“We have provided utilities and infrastructure that would be necessary for someone thinking about developing in that area that wasn’t there two years ago,” Werbner said.
A tech corridor for a small town like Tolland, which guards its open space as sacrosanct, would be a major shot in the economic development arm.
But the path is not always straight. While some in town would rather maintain the status quo, others want to move even faster.
In fact, one land owner has filed suit against the town, saying the Village Area zoning regulations are too restrictive and actually make it more difficult to develop to the area.
Another key component in the equation, says Tolland’s chairman of the economic development commission George Mantak, is the state’s recent decision to invest $170 million in a technology park at UConn.
That investment will add up to 1.4 million square feet of research, technology and academic space on the North Campus in Storrs. The concept includes a 125,000-square-foot facility to house primarily large, flexible-use laboratories containing specialized equipment not readily available to industry. The building will also provide high tech “clean rooms” and a bio-nanofabrication facility, business incubators, private space for use by individual companies and office space.
It is a project that was originally discussed 25 years ago but never came to fruition, something that is all too familiar to Bouley. Nerac was supposed to one of the original anchor tenants when the project idea was hatched in the 1980s, Bouley said.
“I’m glad we didn’t wait for it,” Bouley said jokingly. But in all seriousness Bouley said linking the proposed UConn tech park with activities already taking place in Storrs and Tolland will create a gateway where many opportunities will arise.
“The more folks we bring into the mix, the greater the probability that the conversations and outcomes will lead to success,” Bouley said. “It is the nature of the collaborative relationship that will drive the growth of commercialization.”
Bouley’s long-term vision in Tolland is to establish two or three more pad sites on the 15-acre campus where his company is located, with each site having an anchor tenant along with six or seven incubator companies. That would total about 100,000 square feet of space, hosting about 300 to 500 employees, Bouley said.
He envisions a campus-like environment where buildings are interconnected and companies engender a collaborative relationship sharing services, resources, and talent.
Some of that already exists.
Among those who have taken residence on the Nerac campus is Dennis Nash, president and CEO of Control Station, which has developed software that helps manufacturers optimize their means of production.
Nash’s company, whose software is based on research from UConn chemical engineering professor Douglas Cooper, remains small but its clients include Fortune 100 companies like Anheuser Busch, Conoco Phillips, Chevron, and U.S. Steel. Nash said he is planning to hire more sales staff and engineers to drive a growrth agenda.
When Nash, a UConn MBA graduate, took control of the company in 2004, he turned to the Nerac facility which also gives him access to Bouley, who is one of his angel investors.
“The ability to walk down the hallway and pick the brain of other entrepreneurs is very beneficial,” he said.
Bouley knows his vision of a tech corridor won’t happen overnight. He said he’s achieved only about 20 percent of his overall vision so far. And he understands the challenges of building that critical mass won’t be easy.
“The way you get there is one company at a time,” Bouley said. “If you build a nucleus of talent and you nurture it and take the product of their talent and commercialize it, you can be successful.”
