A business consultant for the regional Workforce Solutions office will travel to the Dominican Republic in January to help that nation’s leaders learn more about how the Treasure Coast attracted its biotech industries.

Michael Corbit, a business projects regional consultant for the non-profit entity representing Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties, was invited to the Caribbean nation after participating in an economic development forum with the Dominican president and business leaders in Miami Dec. 7.

“The purpose of that meeting was to share with President Leonel Fernandez how the South Florida community has successfully built high technology, telecommunications and life science clusters,” Corbit said. “The president was so impressed he has invited several of the attendees to visit Santo Domingo January 17, 18 and 19.”

Richard Stetson, acting president, CEO and vice president of administration at Workforce Solutions, says it’s “extremely important” that the Treasure Coast be represented on that trip.

“The Dominican Republic is a big trade partner to Florida,” Stetson said. “We hope this visit will increase the trade capacity between Florida, our region and the Dominican Republic.”

Ralph MacNamara, client services director for the South Florida-based accounting firm Kaufman Rossin, was one of the businessmen who helped organize the Miami meeting. MacNamara says the upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic will be mutually beneficial.

“Florida will benefit when others in our backyard benefit,” he said. “The overwhelming amount of trade that theDominican Republic does with the United States goes through Florida. Our vision is a long term relationship with them.”

Both MacNamara and Corbit say they learned in the Miami meeting the Dominican Republic boasts a technology enterprise zone home to a network access point built by Terremark, the same telecommunications firm that constructed Miami’s NAP of the Americas.

“The fact that they have made that type of investment in their infrastructure is very important,” MacNamara said.

Corbit says Dominican leaders are already making plans for another fact-finding mission to Florida next March. The consultant hopes to lure them to the Treasure Coast during that trip.

“The whole objective is to get them to come here to involve the local business community as well,” Corbit said.

Dominican Republic business executives are particularly interested in the Treasure Coast — now also called theResearch Coast — because of its success with the Tradition Center for Innovation in St. Lucie County. Since 2006, the facility has become home to the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies and the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of the Oregon Health and Science University. Both the Mann Research Center and Martin Memorial Health Systems plan to build facilities nearby as well.

Larry Pelton, president of the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County, says scientific cooperation between the Dominican Republic and the Treasure Coast could become a reality in the future.

“The research institutes that we’ve attracted here are always interested in partnering with other research institutes,” Pelton said. “That could open some opportunities for the local research organizations, and maybe there’s some research going on in the Dominican Republic in which our scientists might be able to form a collaborative effort.”