Science North: entrepreneurial community of the year.

Tourism was close to being a non-existent entity in Sudbury in the late 1970s.

That is, until the skeletal framework of a strange $27-million space saucer-shaped complex began rising on the shores of Ramsey Lake.

Opened in 1984, Science North has become a Sudbury landmark almost as recognizable as the Big Nickel or Inco's Super Stack.

Each year, thousands of school children frequent the centre as an educational resource and close to 200,000 tourists visit annually while on their travels in Northern Ontario.

Tourism in Sudbury today represents an industry estimated at $212 million a year, with much of the money being spent in hotels and restaurants. The city's tourism industry employs 4,000 people.

As the city's main drawing card, Science North has been the catalyst for growth.

The 20-year-old venue is considered one of Ontario's tourism leaders in entrepreneurship and innovation, exporting its unique brand of made-in-the-North entertainment technology to clients around the world.

"Science North has taken Sudbury from being last on the tourist map of Northern Ontario to being first," boasts Jim Marchbank, the centre's CEO since 1987, and one of its original planners, dating back to his civil servant days in the old Sudbury regional chairman's office in 1979.

The complex, which employs 70 full-time and 156 part-time staff, has evolved into something beyond the earliest conceptions.

"It's expanded into a multi-attraction site," says Marchbank, with last year's ribbon cutting of the Dynamic Earth attraction. "When we first opened, we had an excellent science centre, one that we worked at and improved over the next decade.

"In the second decade, we've added more variety and gave people reasons to stay longer and come back."

Last year, Science North spawned a secondary attraction across town with the redevelopment of the former Big Nickel Mine site into Dynamic Earth, a $13-million venue dedicated to exhibiting the earth sciences and Sudbury's hard-rock mining history.

Although enjoying solid attendance numbers during a shortened inaugural season--about 75,000 visitations--Sudbury's Dynamic Earth garnered solid feedback from visitors who rated the facility as "good" or "very good" in an Oracle poll.

Science North has established a revolutionary style of breaking down the fear of science with creative interactive displays--developed in-house--and introducing a comfort level through personal interaction by its blue-coated staff.

Constant changes in science programming have been essential in keeping visitors on site longer, encouraging Sudbury residents to come back and in raising more revenue.

An IMAX theatre was added 10 years ago, followed by a Virtual Voyages motion simulator in 1997 and, in 2000, the MacLeod Butterfly Gallery was built, along with a special exhibits hall, allowing them to change and add new programs.

The centre's food and retail business has also benefited. Science North has become a community gathering place for speeches, lectures and leisure activity, regularly hosting more than 100 catered events and functions annually, ranging from corporate functions to weddings.

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It manifests itself with a high degree of community support whenever they fundraise for capital projects such as the upcoming $7-million second phase expansion of Dynamic Earth, expected to open in 2006.

The new $7-million expansion will include two exhibit galleries, new earth science exhibits and a 4,500-square-foot, 160-seat multi-purpose theatre that can project large-format films.

A public campaign will be launched to raise $1 million.

The sustained level of local support sends a message to senior government to be more inclined to invest tax dollars.

"We get government money, but we are highly entrepreneurial in securing other money."

Marchbank points out, Science North is not a business, but a non-profit organization run in a business-like fashion.

"I think where the entrepreneurialism comes in is being able--with the base of government operating funding - to be very entrepreneurial in how we secure other resources to expand, change and keep the place vibrant and growing."

This year, Science North's base operating grant from the Ministry of Culture is almost the same as it was 15 years ago--at $2.96 million--for their overall operating budget of $13 million.

Back in 1990-91, the centre's operating budget of $4.7 million was underwritten with a $3-million government subsidy, about two-thirds of the funding came from a government operating grant. The centre has pared down its reliance on government grants by selling its services to others in the tourism attractions business.

Science North's highly successful business unit is Science North Enterprises, which specializes in exhibit design and production, consulting, multimedia attractions, travelling exhibits and film production of large-format IMAX films. The business unit is focused on exporting its services internationally.

A highly-skilled and creative 10-person staff designs, installs, leases and operates attractions for global clients from other science centres, zoos, aquariums and corporate visitor centres.

As part of what Marchbank calls the "intellectual capital of the place," the division pulls in annual sales ranging between $2.5 million and $3 million, which are reinvested back into the centre.

The large-format IMAX film unit also remains an integral part of the centre.

In the last 10 years, they have sold three IMAX films with each production having a budget of $6 million (Cdn).

"We're the only science centre in the world with an IMAX film director on staff," says Marchbank.

By Ian Ross

Northern Ontario Business