Donors' project just received

large state grant

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Thursday, January 26, 2006

By EDDIE CURRAN

Staff Reporter – Mobile Register

A political action committee funded by backers of a Huntsville project that was awarded a $50 million state incentives package has donated $300,000 to Gov. Bob Riley's re-election campaign, state election records show.

The PAC, called Alabamians for Biotechnology, was formed Dec. 16, and three days later made the donation to Riley's campaign, according to the report it filed this week with the Alabama Secretary of State's Office.

James R. Hudson and Lonnie S. McMillian, the two founders of the nonprofit Hudson-Alpha Institute for Technology, each gave $100,000 to the PAC, and an executive with another company that will house its operations at the new facility chipped in $100,000, the report shows.

In August, Riley and Hudson joined Huntsville community leaders in announcing the state's pledge to provide $50 million in incentives to help the Hudson-Alpha Institute build a biotech research facility and an adjoining 120-acre "biotech campus" where a number of leading biotech firms have pledged to locate operations.

The institute, also funded with about $80 million in private donations, is to serve as a sort of industrial park for biotechnology companies. The institute and those companies hope to apply advances gleaned from the Human Genome Project to create cures for disease based in part on a patient's DNA.

McMillian said Wednesday that he, Hudson and other Huntsville-area businessmen gave millions of dollars of their own money to support what they hope will become a nationally recognized center that will eventually produce hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of high-paying jobs.

The institute is organized as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, said McMillian. None of the state money is going "into people's pockets," he said.

"It's for biotechnology -- it's to cure disease," said McMillian, an executive and leading shareholder in the Huntsville-based technology company, Adtran Inc.

McMillian said he, Hudson and others formed the PAC to support Riley because they know that Riley supports their efforts. He said he hoped that former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore -- Riley's opponent in the Republican primary -- would also support the project, but noted that Moore espouses a fundamentalist Christian view that is not always friendly to science.

"What we believe, what the PAC believes, is that the entire state of Alabama needs a new activity, a new modern industry, and we're trying to get that going in Huntsville," said the 77-year-old McMillian.

Alabamians for Biotechnology, which filed its 2005 report a week early, reported taking in $325,000 in donations and making one contribution -- the $300,000 to Riley.

In 1999, Hudson sold his company, Huntsville-based Research Genetics Inc., for $126 million, according to news reports. The firm manufactured artificial DNA.

Milton Harris, an executive with one of those firms planning to participate in the project -- called Nektar Therapeutics -- also gave $100,000 to the PAC, its report shows.

Riley campaign spokesman Dax Swatek said the governor has been stressing the importance of luring biotech industries to Alabama since the 2002 campaign as a means of diversifying industry and bringing in high-paying jobs.

Georgia was competing for the institute, which had bipartisan support from the likes of U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Alabama, he said.

"That group up there, they put $80 million into building this biotechnology center. It was a significant contribution to the state," Swatek said.

Swatek said it would be ridiculous to think that Riley's support of the project was in any way connected to the donation made in December from the PAC. (Right ????? And Pigs Fly …Duh ????)

PACs and candidates for public office throughout Alabama face a Jan. 31 deadline for filing reports showing how much money they received and spent during 2005. That's an important date for the governor's race, since those reports are expected to provide an early indication of each candidate's ability to generate financial support for the expensive campaign to come.

In 2002, Riley raised and spent $13.8 million in unseating Gov. Don Siegelman, whose campaign cost $11.4 million.

On June 6, Riley faces Moore in the Republican primary, and Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley will square off against Siegelman in the Democratic primary.