SSTI Digest

The Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) selected Vicki Loise as its first executive director.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels named Mitch Maurer, president of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), as the new state secretary of commerce. Maurer replaces Pat Miller, who stepped down to resume her role as president and CEO of her company, Vera Bradley Designs, Inc.

BioMed SA, a recently founded technology council to promote the development of San Antonio’s health and bioscience community, selected Ann Stevens to serve as its first executive director.

Funding Supplement for Members Only in 2006 As long-time subscribers to the SSTI Weekly Digest know, during the past five years SSTI has published a separate element of the newsletter identifying federal and foundation funding opportunities that support either tech-based economic development directly or scientific inquiry and R&D. The Funding Supplement began in 2001 as a service to the state and local tech-based economic development organizations (TBED) regularly receiving the Digest. They, in turn, could parse and distribute the funding announcements to their client companies and researchers. It has worked well for that purpose -- dozens of organizations and academic offices across the country redistribute SSTI-generated funding announcements through their own client networks. Our readership grew as hundreds of TBED organizations around the country joined the free subscription service to receive both the Digest and the Funding Supplement. An unintended phenomenon happened as well, however. Companies began to subscribe to SSTI to receive the Digest and Funding Supplement directly from…

After several months of debate regarding a number of economic development initiatives, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed into law a major economic stimulus bill. However, unhappy with portions of a separate tax break package for businesses, the governor vetoed two of the 10 bills. Gov. Granholm signed into law a bill creating the 21st Century Jobs Fund, first introduced in her State-of-the-State Speech earlier this year (see the Feb . 21 issue of the Digest). The new initiative appropriates $400 million over fiscal years 2006-07 from tobacco settlement money to provide immediate funds for job creation and to increase Michigan's high-technology economy, according to the governor's press office. Funding for the initiative will be focused in three areas: Competitive Edge Commercialization Program - up to $200 million is available to help diversify and grow the economy by investing in basic research and technology transfer at universities and nonprofit research institutions. The four areas of focus include life sciences; alternative energy; advanced automotive, manufacturing and…

At the end of November, President Bush signed the fiscal year 2006 Appropriations Bill for the Department of Energy & Water, H.R. 2419. A summary of the Administration's budget request for DOE is available in the Feb. 14 issue of the Digest. Highlights of the bill include: Department of Energy The Office of Science is funded at $3.63 billion, an increase of $33 million from the FY05 appropriations and $170 million beyond the Administration's request. Within the Office of Science, $290.6 million is slated for fusion sciences research, the same as the Administration's request. Other Office of Science initiatives include: Advanced Scientific Computing Research - $237 million, $29.9 million more than the Administration's request; Basic Energy Sciences Program - $1.15 billion, the same as the Administration's request; Biological and Environmental Research - $585.7 million, $130 million more than the Administration's request; High Energy Physics - $724 million, $10.1 million more than the Administration's request; and, Nuclear Physics - $370.7…

Note: This is the first in a series of articles SSTI will be running over the next several weeks to provide synopses of selected breakout sessions from SSTI's 9th Annual Conference, held Oct. 19-21, 2005, in Atlanta. Ideas for 2006 conference sessions can be forwarded to skinner@ssti.org. Look for more news on SSTI's 10th annual conference beginning in late winter. The Oct. 21 morning conference session, Sound Strategies for Encouraging Regional Entrepreneurship, was presented by two dynamic speakers who offered an array of valuable lessons learned garnered through years of experience promoting growth through strategic science and technology strategies. Michael Finney, former president and chief executive officer of Greater Rochester Enterprise (GRE), began the session with the story of how the public-private partnership became a success so quickly. A team of practitioners visited 24 regions in the U.S. to interview, learn and observe what was being done to encourage regional entrepreneurship, and what seemed to be working. The GRE team then created a top 10 best practices list…

In another wing of the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta, site of SSTI's 2005 conference, participants shared what their states and regions are doing in the area of encouraging the development and deployment of alternative energy. Lee Cheatham, executive director of the Washington Technology Center, and Karl Jessen, program director of industry support under the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust (RET), led the session. Cheatham opened his presentation, highlighting the market potential for alternative energy. Worldwide energy use is estimated at 382 quadrillion British thermal units (BTU), Cheatham said. Between 1950 and 2004, energy use in the U.S. rose from 34.62 quadrillion BTU to 99.7 quadrillion BTU. Historically, Cheatham said, the subject of energy use has been a business and policy matter. However, increased commercial and residential applications, as well as industrial and transportation uses, have resulted in a shift from business and policy to energy as an economic development driver, he said. Opportunities exist with renewable solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cell and…

The rise in the late 1990s in the concept of a "new economy" was coupled with the rapid growth in research and innovation investment within the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. When the dot-com bubble burst, some state and local strategies were revamped to look for the next big thing, which in many places was biotechnology or nanotechnology. The recent mega investments in R&D by big ICT companies should suggest the return to rosy times for America's info tech advocates, then, right? Probably not. In fact, some would argue that these strategic decisions, perhaps the latest big one being the $1 billion investment announced by Silicon Valley based Cisco Systems in October or Hewlett-Packards announced new R&D facility, should sound significantly loud alarms for state and regional tech-based economic developers. Why? Because, as this column's headline points out, these investments are not occurring in the US. Nor are they occurring in other North America ICT research centers like Ottawa. During the next three years, Cisco Systems is putting $750…

To help entrepreneurs start and manage businesses, the Kauffman Foundation recently launched Kauffman eVenturing™ ( www.eVenturing.org). Designed for growth-oriented entrepreneurs, the new website provides access to current information, organized around key subjects such as finance and accounting, people and human resources, sales and marketing, products and services, operations, and the entrepreneur. New collections of articles will be featured monthly, including original material and an aggregation of “the best of the best” existing articles. Fresh content also will be added through a link-blog to articles and tools on a variety of subjects. Visit the website at http://www.eVenturing.org.

The U.S. Census Bureau has recently released the 2003 Model-based Estimates of Income and Poverty for States from the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates Program (SAIPE). The estimates are created for states, counties and school districts for the purpose of federal programs and the allocation of federal funds to local jurisdictions. SSTI has prepared a table ranking the states, including the District of Columbia and the U.S. overall, by percent change of median household income over the five-year period, 1999-2003, in constant 2003 dollars. During this time period, median household income for the U.S. declined 3.67 percent. Areas with the highest percentage increase in median household income were the District of Columbia, North Dakota, Virginia, Wyoming and New Hampshire. Conversely, the bottom five states were Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, Illinois and Michigan. SSTI’s table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/120505t.htm

On the heels of the release of two roadmaps calling for increased state support for advanced manufacturing and information technology (IT), Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack announced plans to spend $50 million "to attract leading scientists to Iowa and spark new research and product development," according to the Des Moines Register. Gov. Vilsack, addressing those in attendance at a Nov. 17 economic development conference, said he would authorize $50 million to create chairs at the state's universities, the article states. The money would go toward attracting and retaining scientists and faculty and providing grants for businesses, entrepreneurs and others. To fund the investment, the governor "proposed using money generated by bonds that were backed by the state's share of the multi-state tobacco settlement," the Associated Press reports. The money could also be taken from a pot of $100 million in savings expected to result from state debt-refinancing plans, the Des Moines Register adds. Gov. Vilsack also proposed creating a statewide Lean Manufacturing Institute, per the recommendation of the…