Business Images Northwest Louisiana: 2009

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NORTHWEST LOUISIANA

Prescription Strength Region draws pharma firms

Playing a Winning Hand Diverse economy brings good fortune to region

What’s s Online e Read more about developments at Barksdale Air Force Base

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2009 EDITION, VOLUME 4

CU S TO M M AG A Z INE M ED I A

MANAGING EDITOR BILL McMEEKIN COPY EDITOR JOYCE CARUTHERS ASSOCIATE EDITORS LISA BATTLES, SUSAN CHAPPELL, JESSY YANCEY ONLINE CONTENT MANAGER MATT BIGELOW STAFF WRITERS CAROL COWAN, KEVIN LITWIN

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS PAMELA COYLE, SAM SCOTT DATA MANAGER CHANDRA BRADSHAW

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REGIONAL SALES MANAGER CHARLES FITZGIBBON

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SALES SUPPORT MANAGER SARA SARTIN SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER BRIAN MCCORD STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS JEFF ADKINS, TODD BENNETT, ANTONY BOSHIER, IAN CURCIO, J. KYLE KEENER

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CREATIVE DIRECTOR KEITH HARRIS WEB DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR BRIAN SMITH ASSOCIATE PRODUCTION DIRECTOR CHRISTINA CARDEN PRODUCTION PROJECT MANAGERS MELISSA BRACEWELL, KATIE MIDDENDORF, JILL WYATT

Lifestyle A showcase for what drives Northwest Louisianaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high quality of life

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SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS LAURA GALLAGHER, KRIS SEXTON, CANDICE SWEET, VIKKI WILLIAMS EVOb¸a a a S =\ZW\S @SOR []`S OP]cb RSdSZ]^[S\ba Ob 0O`YaROZS /W` 4]`QS 0OaS

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LEAD DESIGNER JANINE MARYLAND GRAPHIC DESIGN ERICA HINES, ALISON HUNTER, JESSICA MANNER, AMY NELSON, MARCUS SNYDER WEB DESIGN DIRECTOR FRANCO SCARAMUZZA

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WEB PROJECT MANAGERS ANDY HARTLEY, YAMEL RUIZ WEB DESIGN CARL SCHULZ WEB PRODUCTION JENNIFER GRAVES COLOR IMAGING TECHNICIAN TWILA ALLEN AD TRAFFIC JESSICA CHILDS, MARCIA MILLAR, PATRICIA MOISAN, RAVEN PETTY CHAIRMAN GREG THURMAN PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BOB SCHWARTZMAN

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EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT RAY LANGEN SR. V.P./CLIENT DEVELOPMENT JEFF HEEFNER SR. V.P./SALES CARLA H. THURMAN SR. V.P./OPERATIONS CASEY E. HESTER V.P./SALES HERB HARPER

Louisiana from our editors and

V.P./SALES TODD POTTER

business insiders.

V.P./TRAVEL PUBLISHING SYBIL STEWART

V.P./VISUAL CONTENT MARK FORESTER V.P./EDITORIAL DIRECTOR TEREE CARUTHERS MANAGING EDITOR/COMMUNITY KIM MADLOM MANAGING EDITOR/CUSTOM KIM NEWSOM

Workstyle A spotlight on innovative companies that call Northwest Louisiana home

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PRODUCTION DIRECTOR NATASHA LORENS

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ACCOUNTING MORIAH DOMBY, DIANA GUZMAN, MARIA MCFARLAND, LISA OWENS

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SALES SUPPORT RACHAEL GOLDSBERRY SALES/MARKETING COORDINATOR RACHEL MATHEIS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY/SALES SUPPORT KRISTY DUNCAN OFFICE MANAGER SHELLY GRISSOM RECEPTIONIST LINDA BISHOP

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Business Images Northwest Louisiana is published annually by Journal Communications Inc. and is distributed through the Northwest Louisiana Economic Development Foundation. For advertising information or to direct questions or comments about the magazine, contact Journal Communications Inc. at (615) 771-0080 or by e-mail at info@jnlcom.com.

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Northwest Louisiana Economic Development Foundation 400 Edwards Street â&#x20AC;˘ Shreveport, LA 71101 Phone: (318) 677-2500 â&#x20AC;˘ Fax: (318) 677-2541 www.nledf.org VISIT BUSINESS IMAGES NORTHWEST LOUISIANA ONLINE AT IMAGESNWLOUISIANA.COM ŠCopyright 2009 Journal Communications Inc., 725 Cool Springs Blvd., Suite 400, Franklin, TN 37067, (615) 771-0080. All rights reserved. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent.

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contents BUSINESS ®

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OVERVIEW

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BUSINESS ALMANAC

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BUSINESS CLIMATE

Playing a Winning Hand

6

Cost benefits, diverse economy bring good fortune to Northwest Louisiana.

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ENERGY

Fired Up on Natural Gas

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Huge Haynesville Shale deposit is fueling a boom in Northwest Louisiana.

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LIFE SCIENCES

Lab Leaders

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Northwest Louisiana develops a culture of bioscience innovation.

Prescription Strength

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HEALTH

Strong Medicine

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Northwest Louisiana attracts highly skilled doctors with national reputations.

ECONOMIC PROFILE

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NORTHWEST LOUISIANA

overview

NORTHWEST LOUISIANA Northwest Louisiana encompasses 10 parishes, offering the best of both urban and rural lifestyles. The region also features a low cost of living, a dynamic and growing economy, and respected higher-education institutions.

For more information about the advantages of doing business in the region, contact: Northwest Louisiana Economic Development Foundation 400 Edwards St. Shreveport, LA 71101 (318) 677-2536 Fax: (318) 677-2541 info@nledf.org SEE VIDEO ONLINE | Take a www.nledf.org virtual tour of Northwest Louisiana at imagesnwlouisiana.com, courtesy of our award-winning photographers.

ARKANSAS Haynesville Springhill

Plain Dealing

Vivian 71

C L AI B O R NE E Homer

371

3

79

B OS S IE R Benton

Oil City

L I NCO OLN

WE B STE TER

CADDO O

167 6

80

Minden

20

20

Bossier City

Ruston

West e Monroe

Arcadia

Shreveport 71

LOUISIANA

171

B IE N V ILL E

49 167 67

DE S O OTO O RE ED D R IV E R 84

Mansfield

Coushatta

84

Logansport

71

171

165 65 84

49

SA B INE

84

Natchitoches 6

167 6

Many

N ATC H ITO O C HE S TEXAS

Toledo Bend Res.

49

71

171 165 5

Alexandria 4 49

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WAR AND REMEMBRANCE A key battle in the Civil War took place in DeSoto County in April 1864 when Confederate forces were able to turn back the Union Army, stopping the Union from gaining complete control of Louisiana and the progression of the war into Texas.

Through living history events, exhibits, battle re-enactments and interpretive programs, the Mansfield State Historic Site allows visitors to travel back to the unrest of the Civil War years and learn more about a key clash that many believe prolonged the war. Go to www.mansfieldbattlefield.org for more.

A GUSHER OF ENERGY HISTORY E Th significance and heritage of energy production in The Northwest Louisiana is captured at the Louisiana State Nor and Gas Museum in Oil City.

Oil a

LETS GO O BOWL-ING NG The Independence Bowl traces its roots back to 1975 when the board of directors of the Shreveport-Bossier ossier City Sports Foundation conceived d the idea of bringing brin a postseason collegiate e football game to Northwest Louisiana.

Today, the game between schools from the Southeastern Conference and Big 12 annually attracts upward of 30,000 visitors to the area, generating an economic impact of some $20 million for the community.

Shreveport has completed a $32 million renovation of Independence Stadium, and the Independence Bowl Foundation stepped up and funded a state-of-the-art scoreboard and DiamondVision screen. For more, go to www.independencebowl.org.

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Exhibits include a variety of early oil-field equipment, Exhibi wooden flow-line pipe, an electric motor patented a wood iin n 1899, a steam-driven fluid pump, an oil derrick and a nd replica replic oil-boom buildings. museum The museu 1911â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s preserves 19 Ferry No. N 1 well, one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first over-water discovery wells. The Caddo Indian Room features relics and arrowheads dating back 10,000 years.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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business almanac

FROM PIONEER DAYS TO THE OIL BOOM The life and culture of Claiborne Parish and Northwest Louisiana from Pre-Columbian times to the present day is on display at the Herbert S. Ford Memorial Museum in Homer, La. Exhibits cover a wide swath, from American Indian culture, Pioneer life, African-American history and daily life in Claiborne Parish to the agriculture, lumber, and oil industries, including the 1920s oil boom.

The museum is named in honor of Herbert Smith Ford, whose collection of eclectic objects and artifacts from Claiborne Parish were donated to the town of Homer when he died in 1960. Go to www.claiborneone.org/ford for more information.

BY GOLLY, IT’S ABOUT THE TAMALE The Zwolle Tamale Fiesta in Sabine County is a celebration of the area’s Spanish and Native American heritage. The threeday event is held each year in the second weekend in October.

The event is jam-packed with all things tamale – from tamale-making demonstrations to a tamale-eating contest to a tamale-judging event.

The fiesta also features pageants, Spanish costume contests, rides and food booths, a very popular Fiesta Mud Bog Race for trucks and more than 20,000 dozen tamales for sale. The 2009 event is set for Oct. 8-10.

Go to www.zwollela.net/tamale.asp for more.

WHERE OUTLAWS MET THEIR FATE Bonnie and Clyde’s outlaw days came to an end in Northwest Louisiana. The Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum occupies the exact location in Gibsland, La., of Ma Canfield’s Cafe where Bonnie and Clyde dined for the last time in 1934 before they met their bloody fate in a deadly ambush in Arcadia.

Featured exhibits in the museum include seized weapons from Bonnie and Clyde’s death car, film footage taken by law enforcement following the ambush and the authentic movie car from the 1967 film about the duo starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

For more, go to www.bonnieandclydemuseum.com.

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Playing a

Winning Cost benefits, diverse economy bring the region good fortune

Hand Scorecard NORTHWEST LOUISIANA

BY THE NUMBERS

600,000 Total population of the 10-parish region

32 million Population within a 350-mile radius

199,000 Total civilian labor force in Shreveport-Bossier MSA

$36,458 Median household income

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NORTHWEST LOUISIANA

business climate

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Frymaster Corp. has called the region home for nearly 75 years, making Frymaster and Dean commercial cookers for shipment across the United States and beyond. The math has favored staying put, says Todd Phillips, the company’s chief financial officer.

He cites state grants for worker training and reasonable energy costs – the region’s rates are about 30 percent below the state average – as factors that help the company stay competitive.

“Louisiana has been the easiest state to work with that I have ever experienced,” he says.

Michael Douglas is vice president of Haynes International in Arcadia, which produces titanium tubing and other high-performance components for Boeing aircraft and NASA’s space shuttle program.

When Douglas arrived in May 2005, local officials immediately helped him hook up with state officials to tap existing programs, and later federal programs, that help businesses that target renewal communities such as Arcadia.

Since then, Haynes has spent $7 million to expand its plant and more than doubled sales volume. The company has a workforce of about 150 people, and Douglas says the quality of his employees is unmatched.

“This is the best workforce I have ever had the honor of working with,” he says.

Like Dean, Douglas has worked across the country.

“What happened with Haynes is not a fluke,” he says. “I am not that lucky.

It seems like these people care at a different level than I’ve been used to.”

– Pamela Coyle

P H OTO S B Y A N TO N Y B O S H I E R

J

im Dean describes himself as a walking billboard for the virtues of Northwest Louisiana.

An East Texas native, he spent 21 years with the Bell system, its spin-offs and affiliates, including serving as manager of the Shreveport Avaya plant that he had to shutter. He passed on the option to relocate to Denver with Avaya.

From quality of life to a cooperative business climate, Northwest Louisiana has what Dean wants.

“It is a big enough place to have everything, but a small enough place that if you need to pick up the phone you can,” says Dean, manager of the CellXion plant in Shreveport, a division of Sabre Industries that builds shelters for telecommunications equipment.

“There is a pro-business environment here. We take a regional approach.

Rather than fussing with the neighborhood across the street, we work together,” he says.

The 10-parish region is diverse, with major industry sectors in life sciences and health care, manufacturing, film production, education, and gaming and hospitality. Interstates, rail and the Red River provide transport options to 32 million people within a 5-hour drive.

A 2008 KPMG study found Shreveport to be No. 1 in cost effectiveness among 14 comparably sized metro areas and the least-expensive location among 56 U.S. cities of all sizes in the study.

A major force in the economy is Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, home to some 16,000 active-duty personnel and civilian workers.

The base generates a direct annual payroll of $400 million. The 22,000-acre base was named in April 2009 as headquarters for the new Air Force Global Strike Command.

The base’s work in cyber security helped spawn the Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City, a $107 million development designed as a super-secure and storm-proof home for the country’s military and intelligence communities, the contractors who serve them and international allies.

Haynes International in Arcadia makes tubing and other high-performance materials and manufactures parts for the aerospace industry and NASA’s space shuttle.

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A Major

Deposit Haynesville Shale is fueling a boom in Northwest Louisiana

SEE MORE ONLINE Learn more about Northwest Louisiana’s energy business at imagesnwlouisiana.com

G

eologists had known about a major natural gas deposit buried in the Haynesville Shale below Northwest Louisiana and East Texas for years. But the fact had all the excitement of knowing there’s sunken treasure on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Getting hold of the riches more than two miles below ground was too hard and too expensive to bother with.

But in 2008, rising energy costs and technological advances in horizontal drilling suddenly put the gas within reach.

The new reality crystallized when Chesapeake Energy, the country’s largest independent producer of natural gas,

announced a discovery in the Haynesville Shale with the potential for a “larger impact on the company than any other play in which it participated to date.”

Soon people were talking about the biggest gas field in the country spread over 3 million acres.

The resulting beeline made instant millionaires out of people whose land suddenly had more value than they ever could have imagined. Land men overwhelmed clerks-ofcourts in the scramble to secure mineral rights.

DeSoto Parish received a windfall of $27 million from leasing the land.

Above left: Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas could lie below Northwest Louisiana in what is known as the Haynesville Shale.

Above right: The economy of Northwest Louisiana has a long heritage of oil and gas production.

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energy

More Insight

TURNING GAS INTO GOLD

THE HAYNESVILLE SHALE natural gas field is a shale rock deposit some 10,000 to 13,000 feet below Northwest Louisiana, East Texas and parts of Arkansas. The Haynesville Shale Play is sometimes referred to as Shreveport Shale or Louisiana Shale. Experts estimate

that the Haynesville Shale formation is spread over some 3 million acres and holds between 20 trillion and 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That would make the formation the largest such deposit in the United States. The Haynesville Shale is a rock formation composed of clay-

Calm returned in late 2008 as the national economy cooled and gas producers turned from securing leases to starting operations. But the Haynesville Shale is still primed to transform the Northwest Louisiana economy as demand for the environmentally friendly fuel rebounds, says Kevin McCotter, a Chesapeake spokesman.

“We see the long-term wealth impact for Northwest Louisiana as being practically unimaginable,” he says.

Shreveport, the largest city on the Haynesville Shale, saw its first well in February 2009 – the first on the shale in such an urban environment.

Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, says the discovery will make Northwest Louisiana the envy of many other areas.

“It’s going to feel a lot better in Northwest Louisiana than in a lot of places in the country,” he says.

NORTHWEST LOUISIANA

sized particles deposited and buried in Northwest Louisiana more than 170 million years ago. The formation has been known about for years, but only recently have energy prices and technology advances made it economically feasible for energy companies to drill for the gas.

The shale holds trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, Briggs says, likely making it the fourth-largest gas field in the world and the biggest in the United States.

And not only is the supply plentiful, it’s clean burning, Briggs says, meaning the Haynesville Play will be a big priority for producers.

Companies have already invested tens of millions of dollars into securing rights and setting up wells, so they’ll need to continue drilling, Briggs says.

Chesapeake, for one, went from five rigs on the Haynesville Shale in April 2008 to 19 at the end of year with expectations of reaching 26 by the end of 2009, McCotter says.

“The only thing that has cooled off is the leasing environment,” he says “The expansion of operation activities has not diminished in the least.”

– Sam Scott

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life sciences

Lab

Leaders Northwest Louisiana develops a culture of bioscience innovation

More Insight BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE The Virginia K. Shehee Biomedical Research Institute opened in 1994 in a 10-story, 160,000-square-foot facility next to Louisiana State University Health Sciences CenterShreveport. The institute, built at a cost of $48 million, was a publicprivate partnership involving local, state and federal governments and LSU. It includes 56 stateof-the-art labs.

H

ealth care is one of Northwest Louisiana’s largest economic sectors, but a growing bioscience industry is giving the region a substantial research and development presence as well.

Some formidable supporters are helping make it happen. Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport and three major private hospitals are within a short distance of each other.

The Biomedical Research Institute has 56 labs occupied by LSU researchers and scientists studying diseases such as stroke, cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer’s. It is a public-private partnership that also houses the administrative offices of the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana.

The biomedical foundation was founded in 1986 amid an oil industry bust to help diversify a regional economy.

“Our focus is more on increasing new company startups, because we are not a hub location,” says Dennis Lower, the foundation’s vice president of business development. “We are focusing on growing our own and creating an infra-

structure that supports emergence of different companies, and support services and activity that will nurture emerging companies.”

InterTech Science Park is a major component of that mission. The 300-acre campus gives tenants access to academic facilities, wet labs, office space, researchers, venture capital and business planning. Biomedical and biotechnology firms are one of InterTech’s four target industry sectors.

The park includes manufacturing space, too, plus another 500 acres to grow. Occupancy across all the buildings is 75 percent.

“We feel good about that,” Lower says.

The Positron Emission Tomography Center is another key initiative. The foundation operates three stand-alone nuclear imaging centers that create three-dimensional representations of biological processes. PET is a powerful diagnostic tool, especially in areas such as oncology, cardiology and neurology.

Southern Isotopes, a wholly owned foundation subsidiary, is taking PET to new levels.

Southern Isotopes already does clinical screening and provides research isotopes to

A researcher inoculates sterile media with PET radiopharmaceuticals at InterTech Science Park.

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A N TO N Y B O S H I E R

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life sciences

ANTONY BOSHIER

universities but the plans don’t stop there. “Our business plan includes taking it into the private sector and developing diagnostic and therapeutic drugs,” Lower says.

Southern Isotopes is involved in multiple clinical trials. It is working on an agent that binds to plaque in the brain that causes Alzheimer’s so the disease can be diagnosed in a living patient. Even better, the technology will allow researchers to actually see if drug therapies are working in the brain.

“When you start getting into the brain, it is very difficult to do any research on living patients. PET has really allowed us to take a look at all those receptors, ” says Chris Vascoe, the company’s research lab manager.

PET could also advance diagnosis and treatment for Parkinson’s, rheumatoid arthritis, pancreatitis and primary brain tumors.

“We can look inside the human body without cutting it open,” Vascoe says. “And you can do it at different time frames.”

– Pamela Coyle

Dr. Christopher Pattillo works with a fluorescence microscope at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.

Prescription Strength REGION HAS A HEALTHY DOSE OF PHARMACEUTICAL MANUFACTURING Northwest Louisiana has a long heritage of pharmaceutical manufacturing.

In 2008, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, a worldwide pharmaceutical maker that is based in India, acquired BASF’s 170-person manufacturing operation in Shreveport.

Red River Pharma LLC makes “medical foods” that deliver nutritional compounds that doctors prescribe for problems such as diabetes and dementia.

Sage Pharmaceuticals is a smaller operation with a focus on cough and cold remedies, both generic and branded.

Embera NeuroTherapies Inc., housed at InterTech Science Park, is working on new drugs for addiction, anxiety and depression.

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Cedar Pharmaceuticals, another InterTech tenant, specializes in so-called niche pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceutical companies have been part of the region since the mid-1960s, starting with Rucker Pharmacal. The site of Dr. Reddy’s, for example, had been built as a corporate headquarters for one of its predecessors.

The company has 42 acres in Shreveport, but has developed only half of them for its campus and 300,000-square-foot facility, says Paul Granberry, who is senior director of Shreveport operations for Dr. Reddy’s.

“We do expect to see some fairly substantial growth in the next 12 to 18 months,” he says.

Dr. Reddy’s is deciding which product lines it will transfer to

Shreveport as well as which new lines will be produced in Northwest Louisiana.

Red River Pharma is a wholly owned subsidiary of PamLab LLC, based in Covington, La. It produces PamLab’s line of medical foods and will launch four new products in 2009, two of them for prenatal care, says Charles Wiggins, president.

Red River’s staff of 40 is likely to grow as new products come on line, he says.

A skilled local labor force attracted Red River’s shareholders, Wiggins says.

“Boots Pharmaceutical and BASF at one time employed 1,000 people,” Wiggins says. “A lot of that labor pool is still in the area.”

– Pamela Coyle

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health

Strong Medicine

Northwest Louisiana attracts highly skilled doctors with national reputations

A

A N TO N Y B O S H I E R

strong health-care system, anchored in part by Louisiana University Medical Center-Shreveport, draws physicians who are providing leading-edge care and attracting patients and notoriety from beyond Northwest Louisiana.

Dr. Lane Rosen, a Shreveport native, is a radiation oncologist and expert on TomoTherapy, or intensity-modulated radiation therapy.

Willis-Knighton Medical Center, where he practices, was among the first sites in the world to offer it.

Dr. Shane Barton, a former NASA engineer from East Texas, also calls the region home. An orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist, he has a Super Bowl ring from his time in Boston as team physician for the NFLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New England Patriots.

Dr. Ravish Patwardhan is another prominent specialist. He founded Comprehensive NeuroSurgery LLC at Willis-Knighton Pierremont and performs more than 750 surgeries a year.

Patwardhan not only runs a busy neurosurgery practice, but also founded and runs four related research, education and philanthropic entities.

In October 2008, Patwardhan was the first physician in the United States to use a laser probe to eradicate a brain tumor.

He was the first U.S. doctor to reroute nerves to restore bladder

Neurosurgeon Dr. Ravish V. Patwardhan has brought a number of pioneering procedures to Northwest Louisiana.

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P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F C H A R L E S DAV I S S M I T H

health

CHRISTUS Schumpert Sutton Children’s Medical Center in Shreveport is drawing pediatric surgeons to the region.

function in a patient with a spinal injury, in this case a child.

The girl had been shot when only a toddler, severing key bladder nerves. In February 2009, the girl, now 7, went to school for the first time without a catheter.

Another first involved the implantation of a device in the brain for treatment of major depression that doesn’t respond to medication.

CHRISTUS Schumpert Sutton Children’s Medical Center opened in 2006 and now boasts a wide range of pediatric specialties that are drawing pediatric surgeons to the region.

“Some of the things that children have are emergencies and have to be done immediately, and trying to travel is counterproductive,” says Dr. Mark Brown, one of three pediatric surgeons at CHRISTUS Schumpert. “It is an extremely stressful experience for families, parents, grandparents and siblings to deal with significant illness in a child. Travel compounds that problem exponentially.”

Brown received his medical training in Shreveport, won a prestigious fellowship in pediatric surgery at The Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and then practiced in Houston before coming to CHRISTUS. He started keeping statistics for the American Council of Surgeons in July 2008, and through February 2009, had performed about 400 surgeries. The practice is likely to add a fourth pediatric surgeon in the next few years.

“Shreveport is a great medical community,” Brown says.

“We have unbelievable medical assets here.”

A graduate of UCLA School of Medicine, Patwardhan did his internship and residency at the University of Alabama. He

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came to Shreveport and then briefly returned to UCLA for key fellowships in epilepsy neurosurgery and neurosurgery for pain.

“I brought the technology back here,” he says. “There were people waiting for years to have some of these procedures.

I thought there was a lot of potential here.”

– Pamela Coyle

Scorecard HEALTH CARE BY THE NUMBERS

22 Number of hospitals in the Shreveport MSA

3,429 Total hospital beds in the MSA

1,100 Physicians in the MSA

25,000 Estimated health-care employment in the region

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visit our

advertisers Barksdale Federal Credit Union www.bfcu.org

Hilton www.shreveport.hilton.com

Biomedical Research Foundation NEON www.biomed.org www.nledf.org Coyle Engineering Northwest Louisiana Association www.coyleengineering-bossier.com of Realtors www.nwlar.org Cyber Innovation Center www.cyberinnovationcenter.org Northwest Louisiana Economic Development Foundation Entergy www.workthisway.org www.entergy.com

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ECONOMIC PROFILE BUSINESS CLIMATE Northwest Louisiana is a 10-parish region of nearly 600,000 residents and a key hub of commerce in the Ark-La-Tex region. Northwest Louisiana is regularly recognized as having one of the most diversified economies of its size in the South, with a track record of significant investment and job growth. Major industry sectors are health care/ life sciences, manufacturing, education, hospitality, military and film/entertainment.

POPULATION TRENDS

MAJOR EMPLOYERS

PARISH

State of Louisiana - 14,490

Bienvile - 14,717

Barksdale Air Force Base - 9,018

Bossier - 106,187

Caddo Parish School Board School System - 6,743

FOR MORE INFORMATION

LSU Health Sciences Center - 5,941

Caddo - 248,109

Lincoln - 41,053

Willis Knighton Health System - 5,061

Natchitoches - 37,963

General Motors - 2,093

Red River - 9,216

Harrahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s - 2,000

Northwest Louisiana Economic Development Foundation 400 Edwards St. Shreveport, LA Phone: (318) 677-2536 www.nledf.com

Sabine - 23,268 Webster - 40,412

Bossier Parish School Board - 2,638

SOURCES:

Northwest Louisiana - 562,908

City of Shreveport - 2,641

www.nledf.org

Claiborne - 15,798 DeSoto - 26,185

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NORTHWEST LOUISIANA

Ad Index C 3 BA R K S DA L E FED E R A L C R E D IT U N I O N 15 BIOMEDICAL R E S E A RC H FO U N DATI O N C 3 COY L E E N G I N E E R I N G 1 6 C Y B E R I N N OVATI O N C E N T E R 2 E N T E R GY C 4 H I LTO N C 3 N EO N 2 N O RT H W E S T LO U I S I A N A A S S O C I ATI O N O F R E A LTO R S 1 5 N O RT H W E S T LO U I S I A N A ECO N O M I C D E V E LO P M E N T FO U N DATI O N

$*7*- &/(*/&&3*/( t - "/% 4637&:*/( t "3$)*5&$563& COYLE ENGINEERING CO., INC. has provided civil engineering, land surveying and architectural services to a wide spectrum of Northwest Louisiana clients for over 30 years. We can provide full services for your project, from the initial survey through construction management.

TYPICAL SERVICES PROVIDED: Civil Engineering o 3FTJEFOUJBM %FWFMPQNFOU $PNNFSDJBM 4JUF %FTJHO )JHIXBZT 4USFFUT #SJEHFT )ZESBVMJD .PEFMJOH BOE /P 3JTF $FSUJGJDBUJPO Land Surveying o #PVOEBSZ 5PQPHSBQIJD )ZESPHSBQIJD 0JM BOE (BT "-5" "$4.

BOE (14 35, 4VSWFZT Architecture o #VJMEJOH %FTJHO BOE $POTUSVDUJPO 0CTFSWBUJPO

P.O. Box 6177 Bossier City, LA 71171-6177 Fax: (318) 742-1018

3925 Benton Rd. Bossier City, LA 71111 Phone: (318) 746-8987

www.coyleengineering-bossier.com

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