SSTI Digest

Mike Leavitt of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has been appointed the Co-chair of the Federal Laboratories Consortium State and Local Government Committee.

Idaho Falls businessman LaMoyne Hyde was appointed by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne to serve as Director of the Idaho Department of Commerce.

Elizabeth Sellars is the new manager of Idaho Operations for the Department of Energy.

Laurence Gebhardt has been selected to serve as the first director of Idaho's TechConnect East.

Gary Mahn, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce, has announced he will resign from the position at the end of the year.

Governor Dirk Kempthorne has announced the creation of TechConnect East, a regional science and technology office to be located at the Idaho State University Incubation Center in Pocatello, Idaho.

John Glerum, former president and CEO of Ore-Ida Foods, has been named science and technology coordinator for the Idaho Department of Commerce. Glerum also will serve as director of the new Technology and Entrepreneurial Center, to be built on the campus of Boise State University West.

Building Entrepreneurial Networks, a major report on how and why networks of entrepreneurs nurture economic growth in communities across the country, was released Wednesday by the National Commission on Entrepreneurship (NCOE). 



To illustrate the importance of entrepreneurial networks, NCOE’s seventh report profiles five organizations in Idaho, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas that have succeeded in developing unique entrepreneurial networks. 



The report notes that regions which have developed strong entrepreneurial economies tend to possess several key ingredients — well-organized local networks along with strong universities, access to equity capital, and an advanced public infrastructure. Similarly, regions with strong networks tend to have high rates of new start-ups and fast-growing companies. 



The report also suggests local entrepreneurs and policymakers working to spur home-grown entrepreneurship should consider policies and initiatives to develop and support entrepreneurial networks. Case studies are provided for the five organizations which have developed model entrepreneurial networks:

The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is the nationwide network of federal laboratories that provides the forum to develop strategies and opportunities for linking the laboratory mission technologies and expertise with the marketplace. More than 700 major federal laboratories and centers and their parent departments and agencies are FLC members. 



The approach of the FLC is to use a coordinated program that meets the technology transfer support needs of FLC member laboratories, agencies, and their potential partners in the transfer process. While its mission is to promote and facilitate the rapid movement of federal laboratory research results and technologies into the mainstream of the U.S. economy, the FLC develops and tests transfer methods, addresses barriers to the process, provides training, highlights grass-roots transfer efforts, and emphasizes national initiatives where technology transfer has a role. For the public and private sector, the FLC brings laboratories together with potential users of government-developed technologies. This is in part accomplished by the FLC Laboratory Locator Network and regional and national meetings. 



FLC News... 

As the new FLC Chair, Ann Rydalch outlines her goals and objectives in the Summer 2001 edition of FLC Insider, the Consortium's quarterly newsletter. Ms. Rydalch offers the following: 

Bill Shipp has been promoted to president and general manager of the Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory. Currently laboratory director, Shipp will take his new position August 1. Mr. Shipp also serves as Science & Technology Advisor to Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne.

Ann Rydalch has been elected to serve as chair of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer. Ms. Rydalch works for at the Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Lab. Outgoing chair C. Dan Brand will be retiring this summer.

Science policy and tech-based economic development have taken center stage in Idaho with last week’s release of the Idaho Science and Technology Strategy and the supporting new initiatives included in Governor Dirk Kempthorne’s recent budget message.