SSTI Digest

Trisha Batra was named executive director of Absolutely! Aberdeen, an economic development group serving the Aberdeen, S.D., area.

Dr. Alan Brown was named executive director of the Pennsylvania NanoMaterials Commercialization Center, a newly formed economic development initiative.

Barbara Fleisner is the new vice president of economic development for the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. She succeeds Paul Ehrfurth, who retired in June.

As part of plans to build a biotechnology campus in Kannapolis, N.C., Clyde Higgs has been hired to oversee a $100 million venture capital fund that will serve to attract biotech companies and other corporate tenants.

Paul Hiller has stepped down as CEO of the Riverside, Calif.-based Inland Empire Economic Partnership to be the executive director of the Boise Valley Economic Partnership.

GSP Consulting, a full-service government and consulting firm, has added Dr. Jerry Paytas to its newly established Economic Architecture practice as director of research.

Colorado State University and the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp. together have hired Martin Shields as a new regional economist.

Marie Wesselhoft was appointed interim director for the Arizona Center for Innovation, replacing Jim Fountain who is retiring this month.

WSA (formerly the Washington Software Alliance) announced that Kathy Wilcox will step down as the organization's president and CEO at the end of 2006. Wilcox intends to work with for-profit and nonprofit businesses as an advisor on operations, business development, board structuring and fundraising.

Based on the two versions of the FY 2007 budget working their ways respectively through the House and Senate, the National Science Foundation (NSF) appears to be positioned to receive its first significant increase in funding in many years. Both chambers' versions of the NSF appropriations provide increases above the FY06 appropriations in excess of 7 percent, with the full House approving an increase of 7.9 percent in June. The version approved last Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee provides a 7.4 percent increase to the nation's leading agency for science. Much of the increase is consistent with the President's request to support his American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI). NSF's appropriations are included in H.R. 5672, the Commerce-Justice-Science bill. More information is available at: http://thomas.loc.gov

Last week, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley signed the budget agreement passed by the state's General Assembly for fiscal years 2006-07. The budget contains many adjustments favoring K-12 and higher education and several allocations for technology-based growth initiatives. Education received the most attention in the General Assembly's negotiations. The largest new allocation in the budget is $664.1 million for a 5.5 percent raise among most state workers. Public school teachers will receive an average 8 percent raise, while community college and university faculty will get 6 percent with a one-time 2 percent bonus for community college faculty and staff. The higher ed pay raises, along with $79 million for new professors and staff, are intended to attract high-quality faculty and meet projected enrollment increases at North Carolina universities.

It caught the attention of quite a few people when it was first proposed in early 2001, but Maine's investment in 2002 to provide every seventh and eighth grader with a new laptop - approximately 32,000 students and 4,000 teachers - continues to provide a useful example of the size and type of commitment and risk that elected leaders have to be willing to make to transform the outlook for a state or regional economy. It took strong leadership and determination from then-Gov. Angus King to make it happen then, but the move very quickly was recognized as a good investment for the state's future (see 2004 evaluation report).