TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Draper Steps Up Effort To Open Labs In Area

ADVERTISEMENT

By RICHARD MULLINS

rmullins@tampatrib.com

Published: October 22, 2008

TAMPA - New England-based Draper Laboratory has started making an imprint in the Bay area, hiring highly skilled researchers and moving into more permanent office space in St. Petersburg and Tampa.

Draper, a Boston-based, nonprofit research firm, is often hired by the military and others to research thorny but potentially promising issues in the energy, surveillance, micro-electronics, health care and education fields.

"We're here to help solve important problems in the national interest. That's what we do," said Len Polizzotto, a strategic business development official with Draper.
State and local governments ponied up more than $20 million in June to persuade Draper to open new facilities in the Bay area. Polizzotto said the next few months will bring a flurry of activity as the company steps up launching its new operations in the Bay area.

In the next several days, Draper hopes to sign papers purchasing an electronics production site in St. Petersburg. That site will custom-manufacture specialized microchips that military and government agencies need for surveillance and other needs. The military uses such chips on unmanned aerial vehicles and soldiers leave them in hostile areas to tap into communications.

The St. Petersburg site could employ an estimated 65 people in the next five years, primarily in highly technical production jobs.

Draper is working in a temporary site at the University of South Florida, where it conducts medical research. By March, Polizzotto expects Draper to move in to permanent space there, where it will work on developing devices that deliver drugs to specific parts of the body, such as tumors. The USF site could employ 100 people in the next seven years.

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT