In 1940, Redmond, Washington had a population of just 503 people.\u00a0 As recently as 1980, the town was still fairly remote — a long commute to Seattle, which itself was then a middling-sized city.<\/p>\n
In those days, Redmond still boasted just 23,000 residents.<\/p>\n
But in 1987, a company called Microsoft chose to locate its main campus there and Redmond quickly became the hub for a major computer and IT cluster.<\/p>\n
The decision to settle away from California’s Silicon Valley and other established tech centers meant that Microsoft’s development teams were, in many respects, extraordinarily isolated.<\/p>\n
The internet wouldn’t come into wide-spread usage for several years.\u00a0 And Redmond wasn’t close to major high-tech academic centers like MIT or Stanford.<\/p>\n
But the company used its new campus to create a new kind of corporate culture, one that quickly redefined the way modern, idea-based companies operate.<\/p>\n
The Trudeau Institute’s decision to stay in Saranac Lake offers this company and this community something like the same opportunity.<\/p>\n
Put simply, it’s time for all of us to think bigger and smarter about the future of this partnership.\u00a0 If we pull it off, we could see something like Remond’s success here.<\/p>\n
First, let’s look at the major hurdle that we face:\u00a0 The Tri-Lakes region, where Trudeau is based, is in some ways even more isolated than Redmond was in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Yes, the web has made the world a smaller place in terms of the exchange of ideas and virtual collaboration, but our mountain village is still difficult to reach.<\/p>\n
Many of Trudeau’s potential partners — research hospitals, facilities for clinical trials, etc. — are located in other parts of the country, or even overseas.<\/p>\n
This challenge is partly offset by the fact that the Tri-Lakes offers an incredible and unique quality of life.<\/p>\n
With a population of roughly 10,000 people, from the upscale resort neighborhoods of Lake Placid to the homey backstreets of Saranac Lake to the tucked-away rural routes of Vermontville and Ray Brook, we don’t look that different from Redmond in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
You think our weather is bad?\u00a0 Try slogging through a wet Puget Sound summer or a drizzly gray winter.<\/p>\n
Last year, The Scientist magazine<\/a> said Trudeau Institute was already one of the best places in the US for post-doc researchers to work, in part because of the quality of “family and personal” life.<\/p>\n We’re also not hopelessly remote.\u00a0 Boston is a quick hop away by commuter flight.\u00a0 A drive into downtown Burlington or Montreal from Saranac Lake takes about two hours.<\/p>\n Compared with the congested commute-times around Redmond, that’s pretty good.<\/p>\n All of which represents a great start.\u00a0 But it’s only a start.\u00a0 The truth is that to thrive Trudeau needs to grow.\u00a0 And Saranac Lake needs that, too.<\/p>\n For too long the community and the laboratory have existed at arms length, partnering occasionally, celebrating one-another intermittently, but that’s about it.<\/p>\n There’s no vision for how the two pieces fit together, or where we’re going, or what we can do for each other.<\/p>\n