Republican governor candidate Tom Corbett stumps on tech at Bentley

Bentley MicroStation visualization expert Jerry Flynn (left) shows Attorney General Corbett photorealistic 3D renderings specially created in MicroStation for use with 3D glasses.

The man who polls say would be Pennsylvania’s next governor if the election were held today spoke last week on the importance of high technology companies in creating high-paying jobs.

State Attorney General Tom Corbett, whose double-digit lead in the polls over Democratic gubernatorial challenger Dan Onoranto is slipping – though Corbett still enjoys a 10 point cushion – was out stumping at the Exton headquarters of infrastructure software giant Bentley Systems Wednesday.

Some in the region’s technology community may remember Corbett for his subpoenaing Twitter in May to unveil a series of anonymous users who were criticizing his candidacy.

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Friday Q&A: New Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce head Rob Wonderling

Rob Wonderling is losing his office in the Harrisburg State Capitol complex.

On Aug. 1, the two-term Republican state senator from Delaware County will report to the Avenue of the Arts as the new president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, as the private, 5,000-member organization announced last month.

By taking the helm of the region’s largest business advocacy organization, he says he’s eager to rebolden the region’s new business community.

“We’ve really lost the language of entrepreneurship [in the region],” Wonderling, 47, says. “Risk taking and capital and job creation are almost scurrilous terms in some political quarters. I feel very passionately that for a free democratic society, we need all of that.”

He has startups on the brain — even if startups aren’t exactly in his past.

Before winning his district in 2002, wunderkid Wonderling served as deputy secretary of transportation to then-Gov. Tom Ridge. He spent the previous decade working for Bentley Systems, an Exton-based software firm whom we’ve profiled and Allentown-based Air Products and Chemicals.

Those gigs are more representative of his gadget trigger. See, Wonderling is something of a tech head, having professed that his Blackberry made him a better legislator.

“If you want to be an effective public servant, you really need to master emerging communication tools and techniques that mirror the way constituents are getting their information,” Wonderling, who was among the first Pennsylvania lawmakers to use a handheld wireless device as a legislative tool, told me last summer. “We’re a more mobile culture. I need to be, too.”

Wonderling’s ascension as the Chamber chief after former Gov. Mark Schweiker — who is taking an executive gig with Center City-based business services company PRWT — ended a six-year term was not without criticism.

There was some speculation after Schweiker announced his impending resignation that the Chamber might hire a female or minority chairman for the first time in its 208-year history, as the Business Journal reported, but still the Wonderling choice seemed to surprise few.

The young legislator could even be positioning himself for a possible gubernatorial run in 2014, as suggested by conservative columnist and Pottstown Mercury city editor Tony Phyrillas, who noted Wonderling signed just a three-year contract. Already there are a host of political ramifications from Wonderling’s departure.

But in an exclusive interview with Technically Philly, Wonderling stays off politics and instead tells us how he’ll use, promote and cultivate technology at the Chamber and throughout the region. He also uses the word “scurrlous” unprompted.

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Friday Q&A: Chris Barron of Bentley Systems

Bentley Systems, an infrastructure software company based in Exton and run by four brothers, might  ride the wave of federal stimulus dollars in the region.

With more than 450 employees in southeastern Pennsylvania, including at least 300 in tech fields, Bentley is a major player in the region’s creative economy.

“Bentley has a large number of users throughout Pennsylvania designing, building, and managing infrastructure for water and waste water, roads and bridges, rail and transit, power generation and alternative energy, and green buildings and environmentally sensitive land development,” said Chris Barron, the company’s vice president for corporate marketing. “Some” of their clients will be involved with projects that will benefit from the stimulus spending, though he declined to go into specifics.

Though four brothers are the top dogs, Barron says he’s never confused them — “They are all very unique individuals,” he says — but, after the jump, he does share with us his favorite Bentley clan story and suggests, if they were superheroes, just what superheros they’d be.

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