Ben Franklin News

Ben Franklin Hosts PA House Manufacturing Caucus

The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP) hosted the Pennsylvania House Manufacturing Caucus at its Ben Franklin TechVentures® headquarters on Lehigh University’s campus on Thursday afternoon, November 14. More than a dozen elected officials and state dignitaries toured the award-winning, technology-based incubator/post-incubator facility, stopping at resident company XiGo Nanotools and post-incubator client Saladax Biomedical. Guests then traveled to successful Ben Franklin alumni clients IQE and OraSure Technologies at the John M. Cook Technology Center in Bethlehem, and toured those facilities as well.

The purpose of the Pennsylvania House Manufacturing Caucus is to encourage manufacturing in the Commonwealth in a bipartisan effort through a variety of methods. These include providing opportunities for interaction with the manufacturing community on policies that relate to manufacturing in Pennsylvania; providing caucus members briefings on manufacturing-related issues in Pennsylvania; raising the profile of the Pennsylvania manufacturing industry throughout the Commonwealth; and providing an opportunity for visits and tours of manufacturing facilities across the Commonwealth.

“Manufacturing is key to creating and maintaining highly paid, sustainable jobs in Pennsylvania, and is a fundamental element of Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ mission,” said R. Chadwick Paul, Jr., President and CEO of BFTP/NEP. “We support innovation in established manufacturers, and we develop tech-based early-stage firms that become Pennsylvania’s future manufacturers. The jobs that our clients create typically pay 36% more than the Commonwealth’s average.”

 

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