Bob Geolas did not know exactly what he wanted to do when he entered N.C . State in the 1980s . Like many undecided students, he changed his major and graduated with a political science degree. He is now the CEO of Research Triangle Park.
Geolas started a new chapter of his career in research parks when he started at RTP in Nov. 28. After graduating in 1987, Geolas worked in politics and was the youngest chief of staff of the speaker of house of North Carolina. He spearheaded the Clinton campaign in the state, but after getting married, he left politics to return to the University.
Centennial Campus was the first project outside traditional politics that Geolas helped pioneer. Before changing his degree to political science, Geolas was a design student and became friends with the college’s then-dean, Claude McKinney, the mastermind of the research-park campus.
“Claude was a very open dean, and I would stop by his office and talk with him a lot, and he would talk about this place he imaged called Centennial Campus,” Geolas said. “He would show me sketches of what he thought, but no one else really got it. But Claude made sure to get this campus built.”
With the political support of Gov . Jim Hunt, Chancellor Bruce Poulton launched Centennial Campus, and in 1989 the first building on the campus was occupied.
“Claude and Governor Hunt really coalesced at a perfect time,” Geolas said. “Claude was a great visionary, but he was enormously patient … I learned a lot from him.”
Geolas worked on Centennial Campus in 1995 and worked as the coordinator of partnership development. Michael Harwood, associate vice chancellor of Centennial Campus Development, worked with Geolas on expanding the campus.
“I was a project manager for many of the early projects on campus,” Harwood said. “Bob was working with the University’s departments and companies coming into the buildings I was developing. Bob handled the partnership side. When Dean McKinney retired and Bob took over, we continued to work together to plot the future of the campus.”
Leah Burton, Centennial Campus director of partnership development, worked with Geolas before he left in 2004 and said he left a culture of collaboration.
“When Bob left Centennial Campus, he left in place a network of strong relations between the various people who comprise the campus,” Burton said. “It was easy for us to carry on with the trail he had paved.”
Geolas left Centennial Campus to direct the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research and served as Clemson’s associate vice president for economic development.
After the RTP’s former CEO Rick Weddle left North Carolina, Geolas’ application rose to the top of the global search. Geolas said he couldn’t wait to return home.
“I am excited to run Research Triangle Park and be involved in this place I’ve admired for so long.”
Overseeing the development of the park, Geolas said his main goal is to maintain the reputation of RTP and continue its growth.
“We have to market the park, position its brand, and we have to make sure all the businesses have the resources to continue to grow,” Geolas said. “We help locate companies in the park. We’re constantly held up as one of the top three innovation spots in the nation. We’re constantly looking at ways to leverage this park to make this state and country a better place. I want to keep that going and make it even better.”
Geolas said the park transformed the local economy from an agrarian one into a secure, modern, innovation-based system. He joked that the Southern adage, “Thank God for Mississippi,” no longer applied to North Carolina once Gov . Luther Hodges and university leaders created the park to modernize the state’s economy in 1959.
The park has remained financially healthy, and during the height of the recessionSite Selection magazine named RTP the top business climate in the country. Business developers have called the park the “Silicon Valley of the East,” and President Obama has referenced RTP as a model to follow.
The park wasn’t immune to the effects of the down economy, with an 18.39 percent office vacancy rate in 2009, the worst in 20 years, according to the Triangle Business Journal. However, Geolas said he’s initiating policies for a more robust business environment to fortify current companies and to attract new ones.
“This year, we’re looking to launch a new master plan that’s going to change how RTP looks and feels,” Geolas said. “It’s going to be much more collaborative; it’s going to be a place that brings people together. It will be authentic in that it represents the best for North Carolina. We’re not trying to be Abu Dhabi or Beijing. We’re going to be who we are.”
For Harwood, this plan isn’t anything new.
“While developing Centennial Campus, we made sure to emphasize collaboration,” Harwood said. “The campus is predicated on proximity, which McKinney envisioned.”
Knowledge transfer is a contact sport. Taking ideas from the lab to the business to consumers. I hope Bob can achieve something like this at RTP , which has some companies isolated from others.”
Calling himself the champion of North Carolina, Geolas said besides partnership, inspiring industry and community growth will be his top concerns.
“This park has to keep being inspirational,” Geolas said. “It’s what inspired us with Centennial Campus. We need facilities and spaces that inspire people. But it needs to be accessible, so we need to keep it open so people who want to create and grow can flourish here. I want RTP to be the most innovative research park in the world. Bar none.”
With those words, Geolas may be envisioning his RTP just as his inspiration, Dean McKinney, envisioned Centennial Campus. In several ways, things have come full circle for Geolas. In the beginning for RTP, even the New York Times seemed incredulous that the nation’s largest research park at the time would open in North Carolina. As McKinney designed Centennial Campus, the local News and Observer was skeptical. That was then. This is now.
“We’re leading the way and we’re only going to keep building,” Geolas said.
