Danville Institute gets boost from Virginia budget proposal

While not everyone was satisfied with Gov. Bob McDonnell’s budget proposal released Monday, the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research’s leaders said they were “highly appreciative.”

The new budget maintained current Institute funding planned until 2014 and also brought in $1.2 million in new funds for the next two years. The money will be directed at research and development in chemical and polymer manufacturing, which are designed to be a crux for creating new technology jobs and aiding existing manufacturing jobs.

“We want to start helping chemical manufacturers of the region move to more stable production methods as well as widening their scope of products in order to bring more jobs into the region,” said Jim Ciszewski, an analytical chemist at the Institute.

Ciszewski said they are trying to help companies make their processes and products more sustainable by making them more environmentally responsible and financially viable.

If you are saving energy then you are controlling costs, according to Ciszewski, who believes that chemical manufacturing is the way of the future. He said the Institute is working with local companies, like DanChem Technologies, to be less energy intensive and use the Institute’s advanced facilities for lab studies.

“We are in a position to do a lot of good for the region,” said Ciszewski.

The Institute is also trying to use its facilities for college programs at Averett University and Danville Community College, where they have been recruiting some of their students.

Averett alumni Dana Lambert works at the Institute as a lab and research technician. She has been researching samples from Japan Tobacco International and recording the nicotine and sugar content.

This is one of the first things the Institute began doing with its analytical chemistry department and they hope to use the methods on many other things in the future, according to Lambert.

“I’m testing tobacco right now,” said Lambert. “But the process for this can transcend into other things.”

Lambert said her department is looking for new ways to utilize the unique equipment at the facility. Lambert’s position is temporary, but the extra funding helps ensure the efforts she works toward continue, especially since they help bring new economic opportunities.

Lambert’s uncle worked on a tobacco farm his whole life and tobacco farming is something she has grown up around. But now she is working with Virginia’s most famous crop in a new way.

“I’m not out in the fields,” said Lambert. “But I’m still in the business and helping (my uncle) out by being on this side of things.”

She hopes with this new funding, the new ways of research and development can continue.