Erin Burcham is passionate about tech-based economic development and growing biotechnology in Region 2. She has a bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of South Carolina and a master’s degree in leadership studies with a focus on economic development from Virginia Tech. 

While working on her master’s degree, she served as a marketing and program coordinator for the Virginia Tech Roanoke Center’s continuing and professional education programs. 

When she graduated with her master’s, she stepped into the role of director of talent solutions for the Roanoke Regional Partnership. 

She now serves as the executive director of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council and the chief executive officer of the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance. 

1. Over the course of your career, what is your proudest accomplishment? 

We are nearing completion of the 40,000 sq. ft. biotechnology incubator space in Roanoke; it will open at the end of this year. To date, our regional team has raised close to $35 million for the project. 

The project launched in 2021 with a $100,000 grant from GO Virginia led by the VT Corporate Research Center. That first grant allowed us to complete a flexible laboratory space assessment, helping us understand what the region needed and giving us the roadmap to write grants and go after state dollars. 

2. What do you enjoy most about leading the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council and the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance?  

I love convening people who have the common goal of building the biotech and technology sectors in the region. I enjoy working with a variety of partners, including those in government, higher education, industry, and healthcare. Magic happens when we find intersections and collaborate to drive this region forward. 

Our board has nearly 40 members representing industry, higher education, community colleges, and organizations across the state. Being able to work with so many partners and leaders has been a great experience. 

3. What do you hope the impact of Project VITAL will be? 

Over the course of three years, we want to create 406 jobs and raise $50 million in capital.

Our main goal is to remove barriers. We had multiple companies getting ready to move to Raleigh or elsewhere due to the lack of certain assets, consultants, and space in the region. We got together and had roundtable conversations with those companies and dug into what they needed in order to stay here. With this project, we want to be responsive to our growing biotech ecosystem and fill in gaps to make sure we can retain our companies and help them grow. 

4. As you continue your work on Project VITAL, what are you most excited to learn or accomplish? 

I am excited to form strong partnerships across the state, in addition to the region. 

We worked on developing an asset map that includes resources for entrepreneurs across Regions 2, 4, and 9. We’re focused on building a stronger network of capital and talent, so we have a recipe for successful biotechnology companies in the state of Virginia, whether they are a new startup or already established.

One of our biggest hurdles is getting biotechnology companies through U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. On the programmatic side, we are focused on building in mentors, coaches, consultants, and educational programs for our biotech companies to get through the FDA approval process.

5. How will Project VITAL help retain and attract talent in the region? 

We have multiple educational partners baked into VITAL, including Virginia Western Community College, Blue Ridge Partnership for Health Science Careers, and Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council. Joint efforts will create new programs to include an emerging technology conference for teachers, internship programming, and boot camps for high school and community college students. 

In our region, we have great master’s and Ph.D. level biotech programs. Virginia Western Community College has made agreements between James Madison University, Radford University, and Roanoke College that allow students to get 2 + 2 degrees, stacking their associate degree with a bachelor's degree in biotech. 

We’re starting to talk about biotech in K-12 as well, sending equipment to our career and technical education programs and engaging in industry collaboration. 

For our quarterly VITAL meeting, the partners come together and share their progress. In order to build a strong ecosystem, it’s important to bring all the partners to the table to cross collaborate.

We are bringing leaders together that represent startups, established industry, economic development, healthcare, education, and funders. It is going to take us all working together to build a strong new sector in the region. 

6. Project VITAL involves collaboration across Regions 2, 4, and 9. How do you envision the regions working together to achieve shared goals? 

During our planning phase, we worked with our regional chairs closely. Region 2 chair William E. Amos was instrumental in helping us visualize what the statewide partnership would look like. He advocated for baking a cross-collaboration metric into the grant, which includes co-hosting events in different parts of the state. 

I, along with Jim Pannucci, vice president of entrepreneurship and ecosystem development at Activation Capital, and Nikki Hastings, co-founder of CvilleBioHub, have been on multiple stages together talking about what's going on across the state. We are forming a VITAL steering committee that will consist of our three organizations as well as the Department of Housing & Community Development, Virginia Catalyst, Virginia Economic Development Partnership, and the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation.

We will be talking strategically on a statewide scale about biotech as a whole, supporting IP coming out of the universities, and discussing how we can better support founders graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech. This project has given us a reason to support each other at a deeper level and share different resources back and forth. 

For example, when the human factors testing center comes online, Charlottesville and Richmond will have access and be able to do their medical device testing in our region. We have been good partners with these regions in the past, but I have enjoyed working with them on a day-to-day basis and supporting each other's programming from the accelerator side. Each region has specialized resources that can be leveraged across the state. 

7. What is your favorite part of being a GO Virginia Region 2 grantee? 

My favorite part about GO Virginia is it gives us a platform to build the tech and biotech sectors in a meaningful, collaborative way. 

Before GO Virginia, there wasn't a funding mechanism set up for the work we're doing, and the program has helped us to be more successful. 

8. What’s a new hobby or activity you would like to explore someday?

After Project VITAL is completed, I feel like I'll be able to run a biotech company. I'm learning so much about them, so maybe one day I'll run a medical device or therapeutic company. 

9. What is the most memorable place you’ve ever visited? 

Over the last three years, we have traveled to California, Boston, Toronto, and more to meet people from across the world at major biotech conferences. It is inspirational to be with peers across the world that are passionate about game changing technologies, therapeutics, and medical devices that are elevating patient care.