ABSTRACT
A feat of civic entrepreneurship has transformed a college and the town in which it is located. Angus Bowmer and his associates organized the Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association and incorporated it as a non-profit, educational institution so that Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) could control its own finances, institutionalizing an act of civic entrepreneurship and embedding a triple helix coalition in its organizational structure. OSF also receives a portion of the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) on overnight accommodations. Of course, the Festival played a major role in attracting the visitors who paid the tax, indicating the symbiotic relationship between civic entrepreneurship and the public benefit objective of government. A supportive environment for cultural cluster growth was created in Ashland as an outcome of an act of civic entrepreneurship involving triple helix actors, much as the concept for the venture capital firm was invented during the same era in Massachusetts.
