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Dr. George C. Atkinson has been appointed Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of State.

The first director for the new Indiana Venture Center will be Steve Beck.

Buddy Buckingham, director of regional planning at Murray State University, will serve as interim director of the new MSU Innovations and Commercialization Center. Buckingham also currently serves in the Kentucky General Assembly.

The University of California, San Diego's CONNECT program will begin a search for a new director since Fred Cutler's resignation at the end of September.

Indiana Governor Joe Kernan has nominated Katherine Lyon Davis to serve as Lieutenant Governor. Among her past positions, Davis served as manager of Indiana's 21st Century Research and Technology Fund in 1999.

Julian Manly Earls is the new director of the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

Bill Shipp, president of Bechtel BWXT Idaho and lab director of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, is retiring effective Oct. 25. Paul Divjak will be his replacement.

Team Northeast Ohio has picked Texan Robert Farley for its first executive director.

Holmes Foster, chairman of the Iowa Values Fund, has announced his resignation.

Tony Jeff has been selected to serve as executive director of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership of Mississippi.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney appointed Kathy Kottarodis to serve as the state’s first small business advocate. Kottarodis had been director of small business and entrepreneurship within the state’s office of business and technology.

Within the last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a slew of awards – 128 in all – for rural tech-based economic development initiatives. Collectively, the awards total $53.7 million, including:

New Jersey is launching a new program to stimulate new investment, business growth and job creation in the biotechnology and life sciences industries through a special fund to be established through the Business Employment Incentive Program (BEIP).

To transform the nation’s medical research capabilities and speed the movement of research discoveries from the bench to the bedside, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) laid out on Monday a series of initiatives collectively known as the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research.

Secures State as Pilot Site for FastTrac™

Coming soon to an island near you — business development services. That could be the sales pitch for a new development within the High Technology Development Corporation (HTDC), Hawaii's lead tech-based economic development agency.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius made public on Wednesday the details of a statewide economic revitalization plan designed to stimulate and strengthen the Kansas economy. Included in the plan are several items that could help boost tech-based economic development (TBED) in the state:

Policy measures aimed at the development of clusters must take into account which development stage the cluster is currently in. One of the central processes involved in cluster development is that of firm foundings, states Co-Development of Firm Foundings and Regional Clusters, a working paper written by Dirk Fornahl and Max-Peter Menzel.

The Chronicle of Higher Education annually provides in its Almanac an accessible state-by-state snapshot of a variety of statistics useful in measuring the magnitude and health of higher education. The 2002-2003 Almanac of Higher Education, released recently in print and online, is no exception.

Yes, only 10 open seats remain for SSTI’s 7th Annual Conference, Building Tech-based Economies: From Policy to Practice. With nearly three weeks remaining before the October 21-22 event in Seattle, SSTI anticipates it will have to close registration in the coming days based on the phenomenal response to this year’s great slate of 24 breakout sessions, great plenary sessions and wonderful location. If you are planning to attend, we encourage you to register as soon as possible.

At the same time civic and corporate leaders around the country are calling for more high school students to pursue a college education, and specifically science, technology and math degrees, the student's share of the cost for higher education is climbing to record highs.

SBDCs slated for $23 Million Increase; FAST Restored

Probably everyone involved in tech-based economic development (TBED) can name at least one research building, innovation center or tech park named after a significant contributor to the project. And has become commonplace individual components of the structure have been named for individual donors: a wing, the auditorium, the foyer, the artwork, the chairs in the board room.

Universities play a central role in supporting regional technology-based economic development and only one small federal grant program focuses each funding cycle toward new models for improving university-centered collaborative innovation strategies. The Partnership for Innovations (PFI) Program within the National Science Foundation (NSF) opened a new round of competition last week, offering funding of up to $600,000 for 10-15 successful proposals.

In SSTI's second look at the Geographic Area Statistics: 2004 from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Manufactures, SSTI highlights more of the report's key findings, including data on employment, payroll, and average pay per employee.

In December, SSTI invited those involved in and interested in tech-based economic development to consider becoming a member of SSTI. Membership is growing so fast  that we are proud to announce already reaching the 100th member milestone for our Affiliates and Supporters! Special Recognition goes to our 99th member Northwestern University, Office of the President; 100th member Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, BioBusiness Center; and our 101st member CincyTechUSA.