Peter Slate will preside as chief executive officer over the Arizona Technology Enterprises, the newly created limited liability company formed by spinning off Arizona State University's technology transfer office.

Tucson gains Community Investment Business Center, New Tech Park building

Scott Davis will be the new director for the University of Arizona Office of Economic Development.

The South Carolina Technology Alliance calls it the most significant victory for South Carolina's research universities and tech entrepreneurs in the last 50 years. An idle exaggeration? Probably not.

In last week's Tech Talkin' Govs II article, we inadvertently listed Mark Warner as the Governor of South Carolina. Gov. Warner leads the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mark Sanford is Governor of South Carolina. SSTI regrets the error.

Arizona

Gov. Janet Napolitano, State of the State Address, Jan. 12, 2004

In 2003, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano charged the Governor's Council on Innovation and Technology with developing specific recommendations to help diversify the state's economy. With recommendations including new and expanded tax credits, public-private venture capital, angel capital funds, workforce development and internship programs, and lobbying Washington for more funding, the governor now must find a way to finance the plan in a tight fiscal environment.

The new position of vice president of research and health services at the University of South Carolina will be filled by Harris Pastides.

Arizona Universities Partner to Create Joint Biomedical Campus

Joseph James is the new chief operating officer for the South Carolina Department of Commerce.

Since her inauguration in January, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has pushed legislation intended to increase university tech transfer and commercialization (see related item in this issue). But will it work? Do economic incentives really encourage university researchers to pursue commercialization goals? Or are academics "pure" scientists, truly beyond monetary motives as many would argue?

Arizona Legislation to Encourage Tech Transfer Awaits Voters' Approval

The Greenville Spartanburg Anderson Technology Council has named Philip Yanov executive director.

To help formulate the best approach for the state to deploy to help build a stronger technology sector, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has established a state advisory group of consisting entirely of high tech business leaders.

Todd Bankofier has been appointed president of the Arizona Technology Council.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano named Gilbert Jimenez to lead the Department of Commerce and has asked Gail Howard to serve as her policy advisor on economic development. Jimenez was Bank One International's Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for Mexico/Latin America. Howard comes to the administration from Arizona State University, where she has served since 1990 as the University's Director of Economic Development and Constituent Outreach.

Despite, or because of, the continuing fiscal crises facing nearly every state, technology-based economic development remains high on the agendas of most governors, as demonstrated in their recent speeches. Those excerpts pertaining to state efforts to build tech-based economies are provided below.

Several of the key economic development and science & technology positions have been filled by some of the nation's 24 new governors. Many of these individuals will be involved in setting the state's tech-based economic development agenda and determining budget cuts, reorganization plans or program eliminations to handle the money squeeze. In addition, a few other lead S&T agencies have announced top-level changes.

With $90 million already secured in state and private support, a 400-acre automotive research campus to be developed by Clemson University promises to make South Carolina a hub of the nation's automotive and motorsports industry.

The University of Arizona Office of Economic Development (UA OED) has released its annual report card on economic growth and development in the Arizona-Sonora region. Funded by the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the Arizona Department of Commerce, Regional Economic Indicators: Arizona-Sonora 2003 monitors economic changes in the Arizona-Sonora region via 33 indicators across four broad areas:

Carl Russell has resigned as president and CEO of Tucson Technology Incubator Inc. Bo Statham, a consultant to UniSource Energy Corp. on new business development and a client adviser at the incubator, has been named interim president.

Tuesday’s primary resulted in the selection of gubernatorial candidates in nine states: Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. As of press time, Florida’s primary results on the Democratic side were still uncertain.

The new Arizona Technology Council (ATC) has announced its vision and mission as a non-profit association committed to growing member companies and the technology industry in Central and Northern Arizona.

Arizona was one of the first states to embrace cluster-based economic development in the early 1990s. While the formal clusters have had varying degrees of success since then, one of the challenges of a cluster-based approach to technology-based economic development is the fractionalized focus across sectors. Because of this, clusters can end up competing against each other for limited public resources, making cross-sector strategies difficult to identify or implement.

A new biotech report funded by a private foundation finds Arizona possesses many of the essential elements needed to become a national leader in the biosciences. Now, all the state needs is at least 10 years and a $1.4 billion public-private investment, according to the report Platform for Progress: Arizona's Bioscience Roadmap.