SSTI Digest

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. ATC, formed in cooperation with the Arizona Department of Commerce, Southern Arizona Tech Council, various organizations and technology trade associations, will be led by former Phoenix mayor and ATC Chairman Paul Johnson, an appointed executive committee and a board of directors comprised of a cross-section of academic, private and public sector professionals.

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.

Research and studies also are usually concentrated on a particular sector rather than looking at the similar needs and issues that arise in several clusters or span many clusters.

The Greater Flagstaff Economic Council has announced Lewis Humphreys is its new vice president. Humphreys was with the Greater Tucson Economic Council.

Of Arizona's 664,454 businesses, 98 percent qualify as small businesses with fewer than 100 employees, according to a study released by the Arizona Department of Commerce and the Arizona State University's Center for the Advancement of Small Business. The study was conducted by the Masters Consulting Group (MCG), an MBA student organization at ASU's College of Business.

The number of Arizona's small businesses, estimated at 651,317 by the MCG report, includes 281,022 home-based businesses. For comparison, Arizona had 329,031 small firms in 1997, the last year for available U.S. Census data. The 1997 total, however, does not include limited liability partnerships, limited liability companies, not-for-profit corporations, and C corporations.

Arizona

The Governor's Strategic Partnership for Economic Development (GSPED) has formally recognized the state's 12th industry cluster, E-Learning. The implementing organization for the cluster is the Globalized E-Learning Association, which grew from earlier efforts by the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council, the telecommunications infrastructure foundation under GSPED. E-Learning is the 12th Arizona cluster recognized by GSPED since its inception in 1992.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Tenants of the Sante Fe Business Incubator have seen their one-story building increase from 10,000 sq. ft. to 30,000 sq. ft., according to a story by the Albuquerque Journal. The expansion is part of a $2.5 million project funded by the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA), the Regional Development Corporation and other agencies.

Arizona

The U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce has started the Women's Business Growth Leadership Council to help boost women owned business revenue in Arizona, the Business Journal in Phoenix reported. The group is designed to help women better obtain financing and procurement opportunities from the government and large corporations.

Generating $48.7 million in tax revenues to local and state governments and 5,949 direct jobs, the 31 tenants of the University of Arizona Science & Technology Park had an estimated direct impact in excess of $1 billion in FY 2000-01, according to a new report from the university's Office of Economic Development.

Impact of the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park on The Economy of Tucson and Pima County: An Economic and Revenue Impact Analysis for FY 2000-2001 lays out the local and regional direct and indirect impact of the sixth largest university research park in the U.S. In addition to tenant businesses, the park includes a high-tech incubator and high school.

In comparison with the 1999 study of the park's impact, the researchers found:

Arizona

The Arizona State Legislature has agreed to pull $10 million from the Arizona Job Training Program due to a current budget crisis, according to the Arizona Daily Star. A temporary agreement until the Legislature adopts the state budget, the cut in funding for the  program would preserve grants that have been approved but have  not been awarded. About $400,000 for program funding would remain until July 1. The training grants provided through the program enable companies to administer formal training to boost their employees' skills; it is the only state program in Arizona that provides in-house training.



Cleveland, Ohio

During the last eight weeks, communities across the U.S. have witnessed the rise or fall of small business incubators. Here are some of the developments:



Albany, N.Y. — A major expansion of the Albany College of Pharmacy will include incubator space for drug discovery enterprises related to research at the new Center for Medical Science to be built nearby. Plans for the incubator fall under the college's $10 million capital campaign launched in 2000 to increase faculty research, gain new space and offer scholarships to students.



Augusta, Ga. — The Georgia Medical Center Authority is partnering with the Medical College of Georgia to create an incubator designed to grow life sciences companies. The 15,000-square-foot Life Sciences Business Development Center will enable MCG to recruit investigators looking to develop their discoveries and secure patents.

Five Shoes Waiting to Drop on Arizona's Future, a 50-page report released by the Morrison Institute of Public Policy, details five key trends that could harm the state's future if they are not well managed.

The "shoes waiting to drop," according to the report, are trends already at work in Arizona that are altering the state's social and economic make-up. The report says that Morrison Institute researchers believe it behooves Arizona to recognize the trends and respond to them as it plots a course in a time of transition.

The trends are encompassed by the following:

George Atkinson is taking a year-long leave of absence from his position as a professor in chemistry and optical sciences at the University of Arizona to serve as the first American Institute of Physics science fellow at the U.S. State Department.&nbsp