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For immediate release
May 1, 2007
Richmond businessman elected to board of international association
Richmond, Va. — David R. Lohr, executive director of the Virginia Biosciences Development Center, has been re-elected to the board of directors of the National Business Incubation Association. His second three-year term begins Oct. 1.
Lohr has been an incubator professional and manager for nine years, initially at the BIO/START Incubator in Cincinnati, Ohio, and for the past seven years at VBDC. He was the founder and/or president and CEO of two bioscience start-ups — including an incubator client company — and has held engineering and management positions with a Fortune 100 company.
Business incubation programs like VBDC catalyze the process of starting and growing companies by providing entrepreneurs with the expertise, networks and tools they need to make their ventures successful. In 2001 alone, North American incubators assisted more than 35,000 start-up companies that provided full-time employment for nearly 82,000 workers and generated annual revenue of more than $7 billion.
Lohr entered incubation “somewhat by accident,” he said. Having launched, grown and sold a bioscience start-up, Medisorb Technologies International, Lohr was looking for his next opportunity in 1994 when some friends asked him to lend his expertise to BIO/START, which was fairly new at that point. “I was initially reluctant, but they convinced me that BIO/START was a good place to find my next company,” Lohr said. “I ended up liking incubation so much that I’ve been doing it ever since.”
In his second term on the NBIA board, Lohr hopes to enhance the association’s responsiveness to member needs. In addition, he’d like to see the association and the industry as a whole become a stronger voice for incubation. “Public support for incubation could be stronger,” he said. “We should more widely publicize the contribution of incubation to our state and local economies, and that requires more proactive public relations by NBIA and our members to ‘sell’ our story.”
Based in Athens, Ohio, the National Business Incubation Association is the world’s leading organization advancing business incubation and entrepreneurship. Since 1985, NBIA has provided industry professionals with information, education, advocacy and networking resources to bring excellence to the process of assisting early-stage companies.
NBIA’s board of directors, representing top business incubation programs and other key industry organizations, governs the association. The group meets three times a year to discuss association business, including educational programming, finances, member recruitment/services and publications.
Contact:
David R. Lohr
Executive Director
Virginia Biosciences Development Center
Phone: (804) 828-7048
E-mail: drl@vabiotech.com
Linda Knopp
Communications Manager
NBIA
Phone: (740) 593-4331
E-mail: lknopp@nbia.org
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