RochesterGrowth – Reporting On Startups
Today there are hundreds of high tech companies in Rochester, some well established and others just in their start up stage. The goal of the “RochesterGrowth” website is to profile these companies. On a regular basis we will meet with the leaders of these many companies and report on whom they are and what they do, where they see the potential to expand their markets and why they chose Rochester to create and grow their organization. “RochesterGrowth” will also publish short news articles each week on what is happening in the Rochester technology community along with a calendar of upcoming events which might be of interest to our readers. Feedback, ideas supplied by readers are also welcome.
Rochester’s position as both one of the best places to live and one of the most innovative cities in America is by no means a recent phenomenon. Rather, since its founding at the beginning of the nineteenth century growth and innovation have been the fabric of city’s culture.
Rochester has been evolving for over 200 years, its evolutionary success stemming from its ability to adapt its resources to changing marketplace demands as well as creating innovations to generate entirely new markets. The city was founded in 1803 on the site of three cataracts of the Genesee River because of the potential they offered for water power. This water power along with the region’s wheat farms fueled the growth of flour mills and with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1823 Rochester became the greatest producer and exporter of flour in the world. The canal fueled the rapid growth of the city’s economy and population and Rochester became the original boomtown, first given the title of “The Young Lion of the West,” then the “Flour City” because of the many flour mills located along the Genesee River. However, the westward expansion of the mid 1800s took wheat production with it and at the same time electricity began to replace water power as the source of energy for industry.
With the shift of the wheat and flour industry to the west and the elimination of the need for water power to support industrial processes a number of innovative individuals soon turned Rochester’s agricultural industry to the development of a seed and nursery business. These efforts made Rochester one of the largest producers and exporters of seeds and nursery plants in the world, resulting in a change of its nickname from “The Flour City” to the “Flower City.” The late 1800s also saw Rochester move into new areas of industry with the growth of clothing and machine tool manufacturing companies. In the second half of the nineteenth century Rochester became home to a number of other modern innovations: the gasoline powered automobile created by George Selden eight years before the introduction of such a vehicle by Karl Benz in Germany, the first machine gun used in the civil war developed by Dr. Josephus Requa a dentist, and the lever type voting machine by Jacob H. Meyers first used in Rochester in the 1896 election. Technological innovation continued in Rochester with the founding of Western Union, originally the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, Bausch & Lomb, Eastman Kodak and Xerox. These last three companies put Rochester in the forefront of research and manufacturing activities in optics, photography and xerography and towards the end of the twentieth century earned Rochester the title of “The World’s Image Center.”
The continuous creation of new and innovative industries resulted in the growth of a highly skilled work force in Rochester. The continued augmentation of this work force is assured by the nine colleges and universities in the Rochester area. The Rochester Institute of Technology manages over 50 research laboratories and is the only school in the nation to offer a PhD program in imaging science. The University of Rochester is a leading research institution and is home to the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. In 2010, the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry attracted $216.2 million dollars in NIH funding to support its research programs. Also, the concentration of corporations and academic institutions involved in optical and image research and development resulted in the creation of the “Rochester Photonics Cluster” a not-for-profit organization founded to promote and enhance the New York State photonics, optics and imaging industry by fostering the cooperation of business, academia, and government.