2007 Minnesota Biosciences

Looking over a map of Minnesota, Dale Wahlstrom makes a point about the state’s present and future biobusiness industry. Sixteen markers on the map represent ethanol plants that were active as of February 2007. Five others denote plants under construction, which, in total, would push the state’s yearly capacity of corn ethanol to more than one billion gallons.

One thing stands out: The plants populate points throughout the west central portion of the state, from Fergus Falls to Atwater, and pepper the southern region, from Luverne in the southeast to Preston in the southwest. Conspicuously missing, however, are plants throughout the entire top half of Minnesota, including the Iron Range. For Wahlstrom, who is CEO and acting chair of the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, this is a motivating predicament.

“There are people up there that recognize they don’t have anything, and are ready to change their approach,” Wahlstrom says. “It’s more than determination. It’s resolve. We’ll look back ten years from now and those areas will have dots all over, because of what we’re putting in place today.”

Wahlstrom is referring to Destination 2025, a strategic visioning process set forth by the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota. It comes off the heels of two state assessments published last August—one which compared Minnesota’s biobusiness sector to 10 other states, and another that inventoried core markets, products, and technologies from companies in Minnesota’s biobusiness sector.

Destination 2025 aims to be a lighthouse for budding markets identified as biobusiness technology enterprises—from research laboratories to an entrepreneur with a great idea—who are committed to developing or bringing to market bioscience technologies, products, or services.

“We’re trying to create a picture of what the markets are going to look like today, and twenty years from now,” says Wahlstrom. “We want to infer the risks, constraints, and opportunities so that we’re influencing investments and taking advantage of those emerging economic development markets.”

More than 170 experts are involved in Destination 2025—20 on the core team, with another 150 statewide associates, according to Wahlstrom.

“What’s unique is that we’re talking a business approach to this,” says Jeremy Lenz, vice president of operations for the BioBusiness Alliance. “If it’s industrial, agriculture, human or animal, or core biotechnology, we can identify the overlaps in skill-sets and provide a base of data so others around the state can assess their core strengths and invest accordingly.”