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Brian Vogt is the new director of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade in the Colorado Office of the Governor.

The Association of American Universities has named Pat White to serve as director of federal relations.

Washington Gov. Gary Locke appointed Juli Wilkerson to serve as director of the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development, replacing Martha Choe, who is now serving as state coordinator for the Boeing 7E7 project.

Several staff changes occur within the U.S. Department of Commerce:

Several staff changes occur within the U.S. Department of Commerce:

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

Dave Eater has announced his departure from the New Jersey Science and Technology Commission.

Jill Felix, chief executive officer of the University City Science Center in Philadelphia, has announced she is stepping down.

Marye Ann Fox, chancellor of North Carolina State University, is moving on to become chancellor of the University of California, San Diego.

Don Gentry, vice provost for engagement at Purdue University, has announced his retirement.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has appointed Jim Hagen to serve as secretary of the governor's Office of Economic Development.

Pam Inmann is the new executive director of the Western Governors Association.

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney appointed Ranch Kimball to serve as his new economic development secretary.

The Allegheny Conference on Community Development announced the following three staff appointments: Leigh McIntosh was named special projects director, Katherine Needham is a new senior vice president, and Roger Cranville will serve as senior vice president of business investment for the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance.

Nancy Stark has left the National Center for Small Communities to direct the new Rural Governance Initiative, a joint venture of the Rural Policy Research Institute and the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

Also released this week, and related to the negative change of U.S. manufacturing employment, is a new working paper by members of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Outsourcing Jobs? Multinationals and US Employment, by Ann Harrison and Margaret McMillan, examines the labor market decisions of U.S. multinationals at home and abroad for the years 1977 to 1999. Using firm level data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the authors econometric model reveals changes in the employment and operations of U.S.

Supporters of NIST's Advanced Technology Program (ATP) have weathered years of attempts by members of the House and the Bush Administration to eliminate the program, but this may be the biggest hurdle yet: The Senate Appropriations Committee approved language calling for the program's termination as part of the Department of Commerce fiscal year 2007 appropriations. The first of only two ATP-related sentences included in the Senate Committee report 109-580 accompanying H.R.

In a report released last week, a Toronto group says that creative industries may soon overtake ICT and business services as the fastest growing sector in the region's economy. In order to preserve this momentum and ensure that other industries benefit from the presence of a strong creative sector, the authors recommend enlisting regional leaders to create programs that support creative people, creative enterprises, affordable spaces for creative work, and a shared community vision.

"More than one-third of the nation's loss of manufacturing jobs between 2000-2005 occurred in seven Great Lakes states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin," write Howard Wial and Alec Friedhoff in a new paper from the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution.

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology yesterday announced 18 awards for new or expanded manufacturing extension programs. The addition of these programs expands MEP services to all 50 states and Puerto Rico, with MEP services available at 300 sites nationwide. A total of $19.6 million will be provided by the federal government to support the first year funding for these centers, with an additional $21 million being provided by states and other organizations.

One of the hottest political topics this year is the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to other countries. A Google search on "outsourcing" returns about 4.8 million pages. Reports from Gartner, Forrester Research, McKinsey & Company, AeA, and the Institute for International Economics, among others, have looked at the topic and fed the interest.

Based on the two versions of the FY 2007 budget working their ways respectively through the House and Senate, the National Science Foundation (NSF) appears to be positioned to receive its first significant increase in funding in many years. Both chambers' versions of the NSF appropriations provide increases above the FY06 appropriations in excess of 7 percent, with the full House approving an increase of 7.9 percent in June.

Last week, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley signed the budget agreement passed by the state's General Assembly for fiscal years 2006-07. The budget contains many adjustments favoring K-12 and higher education and several allocations for technology-based growth initiatives.

It caught the attention of quite a few people when it was first proposed in early 2001, but Maine's investment in 2002 to provide every seventh and eighth grader with a new laptop - approximately 32,000 students and 4,000 teachers - continues to provide a useful example of the size and type of commitment and risk that elected leaders have to be willing to make to transform the outlook for a state or regional economy. It took strong leadership and determination from then-Gov.

The Department of Education's Committee on the Future of Higher Education has released a second draft of its report on the state of American colleges and universities. As reported in the July 10 issue of the Digest, the document originally released by the committee harshly criticized the U.S. higher education system for wasteful spending, lack of academic rigor, and failure to serve the needs of the national economy.