Ben Franklin News
The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania was named 4th Best Place to Work in Pennsylvania for 2008. R. Chadwick Paul, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of Ben Franklin, accepted the award at an event attended by more than 1,200 guests from throughout the Commonwealth, held the evening of December 2nd at the Hershey Lodge & Convention Center.
“I am honored to lead our team at Ben Franklin, and I am thrilled that our staff ranked our workplace so highly,” said Paul. “The talent, passion, and enthusiasm our team brings to our work is pervasive in the organization, and it is why we are able to accomplish so much.”
The Best Places to Work in PA list is made up of 100 companies split into two groups: 50 medium-sized companies, which was Ben Franklin’s category, and 50 large-sized companies.
The statewide program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Pennsylvania, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce, and businesses.
Organizations from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the 100 Best Places to Work in PA. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophies, systems, and demographics. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. Nearly 45,000 Pennsylvania employees completed the survey. The employee survey was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final rankings.
The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania is part of a four-center, state-funded economic development initiative that links companies with business and technical experts, universities, funding, and other resources to help them prosper through innovation. The organization’s strategy encompasses three key areas: developing early stage, technology-oriented companies; helping established manufacturers creatively apply new technologies and business practices; and promoting an innovative community-wide infrastructure that fosters a favorable business environment for high-growth companies. The northeastern center is headquartered on the campus of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, with regional offices in Lewisburg, Reading, and Wilkes-Barre. It also operates Ben Franklin TechVentures, an award-winning incubator/post-incubator facility, on Lehigh’s campus. The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania serves communities in a 21-county district including Berks, Bradford, Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, Monroe, Montour, Northampton, Northumberland, Pike, Schuylkill, Snyder, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, Union, Wayne, and Wyoming.
“We are in the business of helping northeastern Pennsylvania companies grow and thrive,” Paul said. “The Ben Franklin team inspires entrepreneurship and innovation in our clients by being entrepreneurial and innovative themselves. In our 25 years of work, we’ve started 366 new companies and created and retained 31,270 jobs, and our program has received national and international recognition as a model in economic development.”
The awards program, created in 2000, is one of the first of its kind offered by a state in the US. The program is a partnership of Team PA Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, and the Central Penn Business Journal.
