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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced earlier this week the availability of $6 million in USDA Rural Development grant funds to support rural economic and community development efforts.

The unsettled nature of the venture capital industry is well depicted in two differing reports released Tuesday. Both detail venture capital investments for the second quarter of 2003, but offer a conflicting picture of U.S. investing activity.

The City of Spokane and a group of local organizations have penned a strategic plan designed to help the city and the Inland Northwest achieve an Innovation Economy.

Nearly 60 percent of the new jobs in the knowledge-based economy of the early 21st century will require skills that are held by just 20 percent of the present workforce, states a new report released by the National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM). The Case for Enhancing American Workforce Skills examines a growing skills gap in the nation's manufacturing sector and the problems employers have in finding skilled workers able to deal with technological changes in the workplace.

Until now, the opportunities have been fairly limited for tech-based economic developers to learn from the lessons of fellow practitioners running successful entrepreneurship programs.

Small businesses in the U.S. should consider a wide and complex range of factors before investing in foreign patents, recommends a new report prepared by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO).

C. Michael Cassidy, president of the Georgia Research Alliance, has been appointed to the governing board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley has named Russell Hancock as its new president and CEO.

C. Michael Cassidy, president of the Georgia Research Alliance, has been appointed to the governing board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley has named Russell Hancock as its new president and CEO.

Dr. Lee Eiden, SBIR Program Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Education for nearly seven years, is shifting positions within the agency to work for the Office of Management/Chief Information Office. Dr. Eiden's contributions toward improving the state-federal partnership for SBIR outreach and technical assistance will be greatly missed by the state and local tech-based economic development community.

The director of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development has announced his retirement. Jim Pickens will remain in the position until his replacement is named, according to local news reports.

Pari Sabety, director of Ohio State University's Technology Policy Group, is leaving to become Director of the Neighborhood Markets Initiative, a new program of the Center for Urban and Metropolitan Policy in the Brookings Institution.

The director of the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, Al Wenstrand, is leaving to become executive director of the Florida's Great Northwest, an economic development agency serving the Florida Panhandle.

Despite overall signs of improving fiscal health in 2005, half of the nation’s cities have been forced to raise new revenues to address gaps created by rising employee health care and pension costs, as well as increases in public safety and infrastructure needs, according to a National League of Cities (NLC) survey released last week.

Many Wall Street analysts reacted to last month's jobs numbers with fears of inflation, but a new report released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors Jan. 27 finds those new jobs often are associated with smaller paychecks than those before the last recession. A declining standard of living is not a goal for any state or local economic development program, so the findings present new challenges on how to create higher wage jobs in the future.

With state revenues posting a surplus, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush used his 2006-07 budget proposal to make his largest request yet to support efforts to diversify the state's economy through technology-based economic development (TBED). In total, the budget provides $630 million for several new research-focused initiatives, business recruitment funds, and other economic development programs.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is set to release his fiscal year 2006-07 budget request later this week, which is expected to significantly redesign the state's investment in biotechnology and life science research, according to materials released by the governor's office.

Not all of the pieces critical to building an innovation-based economy have to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, as might be suggested in the Florida and Pennsylvania stories above. Gov. Matt Blunt's Feb. 2 call for the state to provide $2 million for a new Missouri Life Science Incubator - designed to help researchers move their science from the laboratory to commercial businesses - provides a case in point.

On Jan. 26, New York Gov. George Pataki and State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno announced legislation to create a $200 million Biotechnology and Biomedicine Research Initiative through the New York State Charitable Assets Foundation.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced the 13 recipients for one of the most anticipated new federal workforce programs to be launched in several years. The $195 million Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) program attempts to integrate human capital issues of talent and skill development into larger technology-based economic development strategies.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has published online the Science & Engineering State Profiles: 2000-2001, a set of 52 science and engineering (S&E) profiles summarizing state-specific data on personnel and finances. Rankings and totals are given for the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and the report includes a data source page.

Late last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) calling for academic white papers that will focus on specific areas related to social science issues. This is the first step in the review process for colleges and universities that would like to be selected as a Homeland Security Center of Excellence (HS-Center). The Department anticipates selecting at least one HS-Center by end of November 2003 and up to nine more HS-Centers by end of 2004.

Congressional responses to the Administration's recent proposal to merge the Department of Commerce's technology and telecommunications operations into one coordinated agency ranged from a hearty endorsement to dead in the water, according to Capitol Hill-focused news media.

With the sustained depth of the recession, the IT crash, the rapid growth in unemployment and the speculative office construction craze of the late 1990s, one would expect office vacancies to climb and property lease rates to edge down in many cities. Following this thought further might suggest, with cheaper office space available, the need for publicly supported low-rent technology incubator space would decrease.

We recognize that SSTI's annual conference quickly has become the premier professional development event annually for the tech-based economic development field. It's quite an honor, but it is also quite an obligation. Our conference participants have come to expect a level of unsurpassed quality. At least, that's what they tell us in the evaluations.