Congressmen Bart Gordon (D-TN) and Zach Wamp (R-TN) joined with the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Corridor, Inc. (TVC) and with key leaders from Middle Tennessee’s Mind2Marketplace (M2M) group today on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) to officially announce that the  footprint of the Tennessee Valley Corridor, an award-winning regional economic and technology development organization, will be expanded to include Tennessee’s Sixth Congressional District.

 

The technology-rich Tennessee Valley Corridor previously included four congressional districts in eastern and southern middle Tennessee, two in northern Alabama, and one in both southwest Virginia and southern and eastern Kentucky.  The addition of Tennessee’s Sixth District makes a total of nine contiguous congressional districts actively working together for high-tech job creation in the Tennessee Valley Corridor.

 

“I am very pleased to see our Congressional district officially become a part of such a great regional organization,” said Congressman Bart Gordon, who also chairs the powerful House Science and Technology Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. “For some time now, Zach and I have been working together with our colleagues to get more of our high-tech institutions collaborating, both to serve the national interest, and to create more high-tech jobs here in the Tennessee Valley.  Today’s announcement will help those of us here in the Sixth District expand upon and create even more opportunities for collaboration here in Middle Tennessee.”

 

Other congressional leaders actively involved in the Corridor include Tennessee Congressmen Jimmy Duncan, Lincoln Davis, and David Davis; Alabama Congressmen Bud Cramer and Robert Aderholt; Kentucky Congressman Hal Rogers; and Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher. In addition, Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, as well as Alabama Senators Jeff Sessions, have been particularly active supporters of the effort.

 

“From Tennessee Tech and MTSU to all of the automotive facilities and many other science and technology assets in Middle Tennessee, Congressman Gordon’s district is exactly the type of region the Corridor wants as a partner,” said Congressman Wamp. “We look forward to working with our new Middle Tennessee partners to find even more ways to build strong, mutually-beneficial partnerships with other high-tech communities and institutions in Oak Ridge and Tullahoma, Tenn.; Huntsville, Ala. and throughout the Valley for the benefit of the entire region.”

 

“The goal of the Tennessee Valley Corridor is to link together our technology assets so the Tennessee Valley Corridor is instantly-recognized as one of the premiere science and technology regions in the country,” said Tom Rogers from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory who serves as Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Corridor, Inc.  “We welcome Congressman Gordon and his district into this growing effort and are excited to have them joining us.”

 

The Tennessee Valley Corridor (TVC) is a multi-state regional economic development organization dedicated to promoting the Tennessee Valley Corridor as one of the nation's premier science and technology centers, and to leveraging the Valley's abundant research and technology assets and institutions for maximum regional economic development and new job creation.

 

Mind to Marketplace, a consortium of academic professionals, businesspeople, PK-12 educators, Chambers of Commerce and government leaders was formed two years ago to connect the brightest and best ideas in middle Tennessee technology to the marketplace.

 

Since 1995 when it was first formed by Congressman Zach Wamp, the Tennessee Valley Corridor has built a strong alliance of community, business, education and government leaders through a series of regular regional and National economic summits led by the Corridor's bipartisan and multi-state Congressional delegation and a blue-ribbon board of regional leaders.

 

Building on such regional assets as NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal, the U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the National Transportation Research Center, the Center for Rural Development, the National Safe Skies Alliance, several world-class research universities and dozens of corporate leaders in science and technology, the Tennessee Valley Corridor organization has helped showcase the region's superior quality of life and the people, business, natural and scientific resources needed for high-tech research, development, business and investment in the 21st Century.

 

For more information on the Tennessee Valley Corridor, please visit www.tennvalleycorridor.org and Mind to Marketplace can be found at www.mind2marketplace.com.