The terrorist attacks brought sweeping changes to companies large and small.
NJBiz:
In the wake of 9/11
*The state’s biometric industry, whose devices identify people by scanning features like eyeballs, has been thriving and briskly expanding;
*Federal dollars flowing into the state through the Small Business Innovation Research program have increased sharply;
*Defense business for contractors like DRS Technologies in Parsippany and Honeywell in Morristown has soared;
*Companies across the state have intensified their security measures and disaster-preparedness. ‘We don’t take much of anything for granted,’ says Verplanck. ‘We take everything from the bird-flu pandemic to dirty bombs very much to heart.’;
*A wave of companies shifted front- and back-office operations from Manhattan to New Jersey. While the wave has largely receded, the state remains a magnet for back-office relocations.
‘There was a fair amount of frenzy in the market,’ says Mitchell E. Hersh (photo), CEO of Mack-Cali Realty in Cranford. ‘A lot of companies either displaced directly by the World Trade Center or in buildings that were affected as a result of the disaster looked for temporary space, immediate space and accessible space where they could move their work forces.’
‘On the entrepreneurial level, the opportunities have increased significantly in all areas related to homeland security such as sensor technology, advanced communications technology and chemical warfare agents and protection’, says Randy Harmon, principal with Foundations Business Development Group in Plainfield, which helps entrepreneurs to commercialize technology and secure financing.
And as Gov. George Pataki said, ‘the tragedy of 9/11, had nothing to do with what America had done wrong. It had everything to do with what America does right.’ Here’s how brave businessmen carried on.
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