Maryland incubator gets a new name

A special ceremony was held Sunday to recognize a man who championed the growth of the biotech sector in Montgomery County, Maryland.

William E. Hanna, Jr., a longtime councilman and former Rockville mayor, died just before of his 90th birthday last year.

Hanna was elected to Rockville City Council in 1968, and was mayor from 1974-82. He then served four terms on County Council, where he fought to turn farmland on the west side of Interstate 270 into an area reserved for science and biotechnology companies. Hanna worked with Johns Hopkins University to create the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center, the first research and industrial park in the U.S. to be zoned exclusively for biotech and life sciences industries.

The center is also home to the county’s first business incubator, the Shady Grove Innovation Center.

On Sunday it was renamed the William E. Hanna, Jr. Innovation Center in his honor.