In the 1950s, officials told the mothers of North Carolina that if they didn’t support the nascent Research Triangle Park, their sons would move up north and marry Yankees and they’d never see their grandchildren.

“It’s very different today,” Bob Geolas, the president and CEO of the Park, says in the accompanying interview. “Our universities in particular are very good at listening to industry.”

From Astro Turf to barcoding to the Periodic Table to the search for an Ebola vaccine, RTP and our state’s public universities work to convert research into jobs and improve the human condition.