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The Agility Forum at Lehigh University, founded as a think-tank to study industrial competitiveness, is moving toward becoming a self-sufficient, full-service consulting firm.
Eleven of its 36 employees were laid off earlier this spring when the forum learned it would not receive the last $5 million of promised funding from the federal government. The forum was founded on Lehigh's
Goodman campus in the fall of 1992 with a promise of $25 million in federal funding over five years. Industry sponsors -- led by Texas Instruments -- provided additional funding.
Rusty Patterson, president and chief executive officer of the forum since 1994, says the government's cutback was not a surprise. "We were anticipating an extra year or so but we knew all along that we needed to be self-sufficient after the fifth year."
Although the fifth payment wasn't expected until next year, Patterson says the forum cut back staff in March to "better position ourselves for the long haul."
Patterson says the forum had recently increased its revenues by selling its products and services, which include workshops, on-site assessments, education and training tools and publications.
But it wasn't enough to offset...