I stopped by the Cambridge Innovation Center this afternoon to welcome a special newcomer to the neighborhood (Xconomy’s headquarters is just three blocks away). It was Jason Schupbach, the creative economy director for the Massachusetts Office of Business Development.
Schupbach—who is already a familiar face around the local innovation community, of course—is in the vanguard of a group of people from the MOBD and other parts of the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development who are venturing across the Charles. They’ll be spending part of each week working from a suite that EOHED is renting on the 11th floor of the massive startup beehive.
The agency’s main offices will remain in their current location in downtown Boston, but Schupbach and other officials—including Housing and Economic Development secretary Greg Bialecki—will hold office hours in the CIC space for up to two days a week.
The office will also provide at least a part-time home to personnel for Massachusetts: It’s All Here, a public-private partnership between MOBD, MassEcon, MassDevelopment, and the Massachusetts International Trade Council. Through its website www.massitsallhere.com, which was unveiled last fall, the group is campaigning to promote business growth and employment in the state.
Bialecki’s office is expected to announce more details about the office opening soon.
The reasoning behind the move is simple, according to Schupbach. “This is where many of the great future companies are coming out of,” he says. “This is where a lot of the entrepreneurial action is.”
