Fifty years later, that business park — Research Triangle Park — is the nation’s largest research park and is a world-renowned center for research and technology. And that first tenant — RTI International — has become one of the world’s leading research institutes.

 

In the early days of RTI, the company boasted just a handful of employees and a single contract — analyzing morbidity data from Tennessee. Today the company has grown to employ more than 3,800 people working on more than 1,000 projects in more than 40 countries. Those projects touch on just about every topic imaginable, including energy, the environment, pharmaceuticals, education, global health and even local governance in Iraq.

 

Over the years, RTI has been at the heart of a variety of groundbreaking projects. In the 1970s, researchers at the company were responsible for identifying and isolating Taxol, which remains one of the most widely used anti-cancer drugs in the world. In 1988, RTI began to perform the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which is a key source of data on substance abuse for government agencies, policy makers and researchers. To help prevent the spread of malaria, RTI has treated more than 683,000 homes in Africa, helping to protect more than 2.5 million people from the disease, and has essentially eradicated malaria in Zanzibar. The company has also been responsible for a variety of comprehensive educational studies, starting as early as 1969, generating data on learning and achievement, employment, financial aid, college costs and more.

 

The thread uniting these diverse and varied projects is the impressive mission of RTI International — “to improve the human condition by turning knowledge into practice.” While it might sound grandiose, the mission is one that RTI takes very seriously, and the constant pursuit of that mission has been a key to RTI’s success.

 

In fact, the mission was instrumental in recruiting Victoria Haynes, now president and CEO of RTI International, to the company.

 

“What brought me here was the mission, because I was used to working on projects that were more commercially focused. … I thought it would be nice to take the training and knowledge that I had from a business standpoint and be able to apply it to an organization that had such a noble mission,” she said.

 

Haynes, who holds a PhD in chemistry, added that the scientist in her “felt like a kid in a candy shop” upon seeing the variety and depth of research that was going on at RTI. She also appreciated the fact that research at RTI wasn’t just supporting a larger business, research was the business.

 

“The kinds of people who work here, I’d say they have three key characteristics,” said Haynes. “If you talk to people and ask them why they’re here, you’ll hear that it’s because they like the mission and really want to make a difference in the world. They’re also really dedicated to their science; they’re really passionate about what they do. I’ve never worked in an organization that had this level of passion and commitment about the work that they do. And then a third element I think you find in people that work here is that they’re all entrepreneurs.”

 

Haynes said that the organization feeds that entrepreneurial spirit by allowing researchers to develop their own research programs and business areas that address the company’s overall mission.

 

The company continues to thrive in a down economy, with revenues reaching $709 million in fiscal 2008, a boost of $100 million over the previous year. Haynes said revenues in fiscal 2009 will be even higher.

 

About 85 percent of the company’s funding comes from the federal government, which Haynes noted has been a stable source of funding. She added that the stimulus package will keep money rolling into health care, education, energy and a variety of other areas in which RTI does extensive research.

 

Since Haynes joined the organization in July 1999, RTI has also increased its focus on winning contracts for commercial business. RTI has also begun spinning off companies and commercializing intellectual property.

 

“When I first came to RTI, I felt like it was a sleeping giant, that it wasn’t really recognizing its full potential in several ways,” said Haynes. “… There were all these people here with all this capability, but they weren’t empowered to think new, to think big, to think broadly. … I wanted to open up the organization and really see what the potential was, how much we could do as an organization, how far we could really grow if we just let people do what they did best.”

 

The work Haynes has done to help RTI realize its full potential has been noticed, and she was named Businessperson of the Year in 2008 by the Triangle Business Journal. She isn’t dwelling on past accomplishments, however, and plans to continue the company’s focus on energy and international health and begin to direct more investment toward laboratory sciences by outfitting a new building with world-class equipment and additional scientists.

 

However, the main goal will always be to stay true to the company’s mission of improving the human condition.

 

“We’re doing a lot of good,” said Haynes. “We’re affecting millions and millions of people worldwide, and so I feel that besides just having a great business, we’re also impacting in the way that we were meant to impact.”

 

To learn more about RTI’s 50th anniversary, visit www.rti.org/50years.