Why Happy Valley’s Brain Belt Location Matters
Over the last 18 months, I’ve asked a lot of Happy Valley leaders about how they feel about working here. Here in this valley that’s built out of mountains and patchwork fields, startups and materials DNA and entrepreneurial grit, as opposed to Silicon Valley or Research Triangle. Does location even matter anymore, you might ask? […]
“I Could Tell They Had Two Clients: Their Customer and Their Employees”
How Videon Company Culture Drives Success Few things impact your company’s success like its culture. Having a strong, vibrant mission and motivation is the not-so-secret sauce that takes a company from good to great. It’s a purpose and ‘why’ that unites a company, and allows it to make a transformational impact to the marketplace while […]
Philips Ultrasound on Success in Happy Valley: Small Company Culture and Global Resources
When Reid Hannon, senior director of research and development at Philips Ultrasound in Reedsville, ran into technology and manufacturing problems during COVID last year, he and the Philips team knew exactly where to turn. The Penn State alum says being located in the Happy Valley area puts the Philips site in a perfect conjunction of […]
Magnitude Instruments is “Kicking Axis, Taking Names” While it Fuels Renewable Tech
5 Qs with Spectroscopy Founder Magnitude Instruments is a Ben Franklin-fueled startup with a mission: to make time-resolved spectroscopy available to everyone … not just the super nerds. “We’re democratizing it for all researchers,” says founder Eric Kennehan. And he says that incubating the company here in Happy Valley has been critical to their growing […]
GE Healthcare Acquiring BK Medical to Expand Ultrasound Portfolio into Surgical Visualization
The Move Includes Happy Valley-Founded Sound Technology GE has entered into an agreement to acquire BK Medical, a leader in advanced surgical visualization, from Altaris Capital Partners for a cash purchase price of $1.45 billion. This move includes Happy Valley-founded ultrasound company Sound Technologies that started in an incubator in 1987 and quickly became part […]
Happy Valley HR Experts on Attracting & Keeping Talent in the New Reality of Work
If 2020 was defined by COVID, supply shortages and hero moments in times of crisis, then 2021 will be remembered largely by the sea change of office life, and hiring challenges. Finding, keeping and cultivating talent within our businesses while delivering on customer success and maintaining company culture, all while managing a work-from-home paradigm shift, […]
Penn State Grads on Discovering Career Success and Ideal Living in Happy Valley
Happy Valley is home to one of the largest Materials Research Institutions in the United States, world renowned for contributing breakthrough research to government and industry. It’s also home to global materials companies that are creating life-changing solutions in transportation, medicine and defense. So why are Happy Valley companies suffering from ‘brain drain’ and a […]
From the lab to the customer: Penn State excels at research-industry collaboration
Penn State is called Materials Valley for a reason. It’s home to one of the largest Materials Research Institutions in the United States and ranked number one in research expenditures in the U.S. But as I interview innovators and researchers, they keep pointing to something else that puts Penn State at the apex of materials […]
“Why not just stay?” R&D Scientist on HappyValley’s Live-Work Sweet Spot
A few weeks ago, I started interviewing Penn State alumni to find out how Penn State prepared them for their success in thriving local companies. Each of the people I interviewed said something very similar: Penn State gave them the foundation, but it was Happy Valley and its “special sauce” of tech opportunities combined with […]
