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The University of Cincinnati has appointed Anne Chasser to serve as associate vice president for technology transfer and commercialization in the school's Office of Research.

Ladd Christensen and Martin Frey are the new co-directors of the Utah Department of Community and Economic Development.

Oleg Kagonovich has been promoted to the position of CEO of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance. He formerly served as Chief Operating Officer.

Mike Koop, deputy commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Community & Economic Development, is resigning effective March 1 to return to the private sector.

Richard Lunak is the new CEO of Innovation Works and Ron Bianchini has been named chairman of the organization.

Envision Utah appointed Alan Matheson as executive director of the Coalition for Utah's Future, the sponsor of Envision Utah.

Johns Hopkins University has named Jill Tarzian Sorenson to serve as associate provost and director of the Office of Licensing and Technology Development.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin has appointed Nancy Sturm and Jay Cole to serve, respectively, as the state’s education technology coordinator and governor's liaison for education policy, both new policy positions.

Jason Williamson is leaving his position as vice president of community development for the South Carolina Technology Alliance to become a founding partner in a new start-up tech firm.

Bills have been passed and budgets approved with the close of several 2007 legislative sessions in the western states. The below article is part of the Digest's continuing coverage of the legislative outcomes of some of what governors proposed in their State of the State and budget addresses (see SSTI’s Tech Talkin’ Govs Series in the Jan. 8, Jan.

Experience can be an invaluable, and sometimes irreplaceable, asset during the intense and complicated process of building a new firm. Many theorists believe that past entrepreneurial experience, whether with successful or unsuccessful firms, prepares entrepreneurs for the pressures and risks involved in starting a company.

A popular strategy in the TBED community is the attempt to both recruit and develop academic entrepreneurs that may have a substantial effect on the growth of a region's economy. Successful efforts to attract researchers, such as the Georgia Research Alliance and Kentucky's Bucks for Brains programs, are being replicated across the country. However, if one of the hoped-for payoffs is the successful creation of innovative companies, what types of researchers are best suited for this role?

Cities play a pivotal role in producing the technologies that sustain high-tech industries, hosting a majority of the businesses and individuals that comprise those industries. Modern urban theory, including the work of Edward Glaeser and Richard Florida, has popularized the idea of cities as key nodes in which new knowledge is created, spread and adopted by innovative businesses and entrepreneurs.

Industrial R&D expenditures in the U.S. totaled $208 billion in 2004 — an increase of 2.1 percent ($4.3 billion) from 2003, according to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Survey of Industrial Research and Development.

For those interested in technology-based economic development, you'll be hard-pressed to find any good news in the President's Budget Request for FY 2006 unless, that is, you're hoping to go to Mars or heavily involved in homeland security. It's become a matter of routine to expect bad news when the federal budget comes out.

Strengthening America's Communities Grants Program The Strengthening America's Communities Grants Program is a new $3.7 billion initiative proposed within the Department of Commerce to provide performance-based grants for both community and economic development.

Opportunity Zones - While the Administration's FY06 budget request proposes eliminating all other geographically-based tax credit programs (e.g. Enterprise Zones), it is requesting $10 billion over 10 years in tax incentives to competitively select 28 urban and 12 rural economic Opportunity Zones in areas transitioning to new and emerging industries.

Taking one of the largest percentage cuts of all agencies, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) FY 2006 discretionary budget level of $19.4 billion calls for an 11.8 percent reduction, or $2.6 billion below the FY 2005 level.

The Administration's FY 2006 $9.4 billion discretionary budget request for the Department of Commerce reflects a 48 percent increase above FY 2005 estimated expenditures of $6.33 billion. If one excludes the proposed $3.71 billion Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program (see description under Multi-Agency Initiatives above), the agency is actually facing a 5.6 percent cut of more than $357 million.

The Administration's FY 2006 budget request for the Department of Defense (DoD) totals $419.3 billion, an increase of 4.8 percent from the FY 2005 appropriation level. However, the budget proposes significant cuts for Defense science and technology (S&T). The FY06 budget provides $10.5 billion for S&T, a 19.5 percent decrease from the FY05 funding level of $13.1 billion. This includes cuts in basic research, applied research and advanced technology development.

The Administration’s FY 2006 budget request for the Department of Education (ED) is $56 billion, a 0.9 percent decrease ($529.6 million) from the FY 2005 appropriation.

The Administration's FY 2006 budget request for the Department of Energy (DOE) is $23.4 billion, or $475.4 million (2 percent) less than the FY 2005 request. The decrease is largely absorbed by DOE's Environment budget which, at $7.34 billion, reflects a 6.4 percent decrease over FY05.

The $642 billion FY 2006 budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reflects an increase of $58 billion over FY 2005, most of which occurs in mandatory spending programs such as Medicare. Discretionary portions of the HHS FY06 budget total $67.2 billion, a decrease of 1 percent from FY05.

The FY 2006 discretionary budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is $34.15 billion, 6.6 percent above the comparable enacted FY 2005 appropriation. In FY06, DHS seeks to consolidate the research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) activities within the DHS Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate.

Big H, little u, little d may provide the most apt description of the priorities in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) FY 2006 request, as cuts to the economic development programs are deep. Housing advocates may not entirely agree with that summation as the agency overall takes an 11 percent cut to total $28.51 billion for FY06; however, nearly every major initiative promoting economic development falls victim to the budget knife.