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What may bloom
into new industries started with flowers.
It was the
spring of 1997. Jared Cohon, then dean of Yale University's School
of Forestry and Environmental Studies, had just been named the next
president of Carnegie Mellon University when they arrived.
"It was
this beautiful flower arrangement, to congratulate me," Cohon
says. The name on the card was chancellor Mark Nordenberg, University
of Pittsburgh. "That was terrific."
Cohon immediately
called Nordenberg, and the two hit it off. Nearly five years later,
they share podiums at development announcements, huddle together
at events and even occasionally impersonate each other. And together
they're sowing the seeds of new companies and industry sectors,
and combining the strengths of two great universities in ways that
could make Southwestern Pennsylvania an innovator in everything
from artificial intelligence to artificial organs.
The reserved
Cohon's background is down-to-earth civil engineering, and the gregarious
Nordenberg's is the abstract world of law. But both speak the language
of cooperation.
"Jerry
and I have pushed forward with [collaboration] as a high-agenda
item for both of us," says Nordenberg. "What drives each
of us is the genuine belief that we can make our own institutions
better by partnering."
"The natural
state of things is for these two universities, and almost any pair
of universities, not to collaborate, not to cooperate," adds
Cohon. "In a way, we're sort of overcoming the natural tendency
not to cooperate. And we do it by working at it. Just like a good
marriage, you have to work at it."
Marriages,
flowers -- sounds mushy. But there's nothing warm and fuzzy about
the world's fastest computer, 661 new microchip-design jobs, and
an emerging biotechnology effort. That's why Mark Nordenberg and
Jared Cohon are our 2001 Pittsburghers of the Year.
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MARK
NORDENBERG (left): "What drives each of us is
the genuine belief that we can make our own institutions
better by partnering."
JARED COHON: "Just like a good marriage,
you have to work at it."
Photograph
by Blaine Stiger
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Fast
Friends
The guy at
the lectern in Carnegie Mellon's Rangos Ballroom, speaking to the
CMU School of Architecture's annual Cornerstones Symposium, looks
like Mark Nordenberg. But is he?
The tall, wavy-haired
speaker is talking about a "smoker" he attended years
back, a testosterone-fest featuring cigars, booze and ribald humor.
He recounts how someone he knew as Jared Cohon stood up and announced,
"Good evening, I'm Mark Nordenberg, chancellor of the University
of Pittsburgh, and, boy, do I have a joke for you!"
And now it's
time for payback. "Good morning," the speaker says. "I'm
Jerry Cohon, president of CMU, and I'm going to begin with some
off-color humor."
No, Nordenberg
doesn't launch into a dirty joke. And Cohon was not actually in
attendance. The point, not lost on the crowd, is that the leaders
of the two largest universities in town are tight. "We've been
so close," Nordenberg says, "that he sometimes forgets
who he is and who I am."
That closeness
may have begun with flowers, but it quickly got serious. In the
spring of 1997, before Cohon officially started at CMU, the two
first met at the Washington, D.C., offices of the National Science
Foundation. The NSF had just cut its roster of supercomputing centers
from four to two, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center wasn't
among the survivors. Nordenberg and Cohen sought to register their
disappointment, to urge that Pittsburgh get a fair shake in the
future, and to send a message to each other. By gang-tackling Washington,
says Nordenberg, "I think we demonstrated to each other that
we shared a high level of commitment."
Months later,
after Cohon arrived in Pittsburgh, the two ran into each other at
a Duquesne Club function. With their wives, Dr. Nikki Pirillo Nordenberg
and attorney Maureen Cohon, they found a quiet spot and shared dinner.
It became apparent that the two shared not only a healthy competitiveness
and a Midwestern background -- Cohon is from Cleveland, Nordenberg
from Duluth, Minn. -- but also a belief that universities can educate
better when they interact with industry, government and one another.
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The
Sum of the Parts
The
University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University are
economic powerhouses in their own rights. First, the numbers:
Pitt employs 9,000 faculty and staff, and pays them more than
$500 million a year; CMU's payroll is 3,800 people and $263
million.
In
fiscal year 2001, Pitt took in $386 million in research grants,
and CMU got $191 million.
Pitt
confers nearly 6,000 degrees a year, and CMU averages 2,200.
Pitt
researchers disclosed 110 new inventions in 2000, and CMU
researchers had 106.
"We're
not going to be the next U.S. Steel, obviously," says
Christina Gabriel, CMU's vice provost for corporate partnerships.
"That's not our role -- we're research and education
institutions. At the same time, things come out of the universities
that can lead more and more to the creation of new industries
and the creation of new companies."
Established
technology companies, too, come to Pittsburgh to be near its
universities, says Earl Hord, director of the Allegheny County
Department of Development. "Their access to Pitt and
CMU and their research are absolutely key," Hord says.
Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp., for instance, opted to locate
a planned fuel-cell plant in Munhall in large measure because
of the easy access to Pitt's and CMU's Oakland campuses, he
says. That plant may eventually employ 500.
Should
the universities deepen their collaboration -- as Pitt Chancellor
Mark Nordenberg and CMU President Jared Cohon say they intend
to do -- the payoff could be even greater. Combine CMU's computer-engineering
prowess and Pitt's biomedical expertise, and the possibilities
are endless, says Harold Miller, president of the Allegheny
Conference on Community Development. "They have strengths
on their own that are independent of each other, but that,
brought together, create synergies that may be unique to this
region."
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