Dale Wahlstrom “retired” last November—so now he works only 60-hours a week. His new life has nothing to do with taking it easy, and everything to do with making Minnesota’s bioscience industry globally competitive. At 56, he left a 24-year career at Medtronic to become CEO of the nonprofit BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, leading representatives from business, government, and academia in an effort to generate long-term prosperity for Minnesota biobusiness.
“Like most successful people, Dale’s got passion and vision,” says Ray Frost, director of government affairs at MGI Pharma. “Because he felt that Minnesota was falling behind in bioscience, he took on an extremely tough job.”
According to Wahlstrom, Minnesota’s biotech environment is struggling. “We’re proud of the medical device community and the health care community, but it’s almost impossible to get funding for high-end biotech in Minnesota,” he says. “We’re number seven in the U.S. for drug and molecule development, but it goes somewhere else to be commercialized because we don’t have the infrastructure for commercialization here.”
It’s time to play catch-up, Wahlstrom says. The success of the bioscience businesses that are here now is due strictly to the capability and the sheer will and intestinal fortitude of the people who are running them,” he says. “If we put together a strategy to manage the unknowns, we can come out in a very good place. If we do nothing, we’re going to lose.”
Losing isn’t Wahlstrom’s style. Over the years, he held a string of high-level management positions, including heading Medtronic’s billion-dollar Therapy Delivery business in Europe.
“To be a leader, you’ve got to be passionate. You’ve got to care for people and care for an issue or mission—and Dale’s got it all,” says Don Gerhardt, president and CEO of St. Louis Park–based trade association LifeScience Alley™.
In August 2003, while Governor Pawlenty was creating the Minnesota Biosciences Council, Wahlstrom was giving a speech about the experience of building Medtronic facilities in other countries and in U.S. states that were committed to growing their bioscience industry. It concerned him that Minnesota wasn’t making the same commitment.
Governor Pawlenty was likewise concerned—especially when the Legislature didn’t act on the Biosciences Council’s recommendations. He called Gerhardt for help in finding a leader who could make things happen. Fresh from Wahlstrom’s speech, Gerhardt had Dale’s name at the ready and, in July 2004, Pawlenty asked Wahlstrom to chair the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota.
Wahlstrom started his tenure by putting together a Board experienced at the policy level in the industry, then added operational expertise from people in local businesses who “had control over the resources and could actually implement change.”
Since their first meeting in February 2005, the board’s strategies have included: (1) Regular assessment of the state’s position—nationally and globally—in the bioscience industry; (2) Development of Destination 2025—a 20-year strategic vision and road map for the state’s biobusiness industries; and (3) Creation of a virtual BioBusiness Resource Network to support new and established biobusiness enterprises, connecting them with such resources as funding, business development, and real estate.
Wahlstrom says the Alliance has already helped about 46 companies—and is working to persuade five start-ups from other countries to move to Minnesota. “Most of the job growth is in small companies now,” he says, “so we’re going after that niche.”
“We’re in a great place to apply our skill set to the evolving world,” says Wahlstrom. “We just have to kind of wake up and say, ‘Yep, that’s what it’s going to look like—and this is what we have to do.’ We have the intelligence, and the energy, and the chutzpah to do it!”
