SSTI Digest

Eric Griego was appointed assistant secretary of economic development for the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

Hunt Lambert was selected as the new associate vice president for economic development in the Colorado State University system.

Jim Pennekamp will be the executive director of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's research and business park, effective Dec. 1.

John Reardon will be new Charles County Economic Development Department chief in Maryland, effective in December.

Steven Weathers is the new president and CEO of the Regional Growth Partnership in Toledo, Ohio.

As off-year elections go, the Nov. 8, 2005, election was pretty quiet across the country if you weren't running for mayor in one of 300-plus municipalities up for grabs or governor of New Jersey or Virginia. Issues of importance for the technology-based economic development (TBED) community, however, were on the agenda of the nation's only two gubernatorial elections, several of the few bond issues up, and a dozen or so referenda or constitutional amendments on the ballot. This week's Digest is dedicated to looking at the implications for local and statewide TBED efforts in those states that had significant issues before the electorate.

New Jersey and Virginia were the only two states to choose governors in November 2005, with both states having open races. Below is a description of each governor-elect's position on TBED.

New Jersey

New Jersey Gov.-elect Jon Corzine handily defeated Republican businessman Doug Forrester by winning more than 1.15 million votes (53 percent) to 956,795 votes (44 percent) in unofficial results. The governor-elect, who is currently a U.S. senator, will replace Democratic Acting Gov. Richard Codey, who will return to the state Senate as president of that chamber when Gov.-elect Corzine takes his oath of office. As the former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, Senator Corzine put economic development at the top of his agenda during his campaign and said that he will streamline the state’s economic development apparatus and bring the New Jersey Economic Growth & Tourism Commission into the governor’s office.

Last Tuesday's election included a major bond package in Maine, a constitutional amendment in Ohio to complete the Third Frontier initiative, budget reform in New York, and additional TBED items in Iowa and Texas. Following are the results from some of the major ballot and bond issues within the states.

As states have wrestled with budget constraints in recent years, many have adopted or are contemplating spending-limit measures, such as Colorado's Taypayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR), or similar fiscal limitations that restrain growth of government spending. In the recent November elections, California voters rejected a spending-limit proposal and Colorado voters suspended their state's restrictive TABOR amendment, allowing the state to keep funds for the next five years.

Southern Growth Policies Board, a regional public policy think tank, is accepting nominations for its Innovator Awards. These awards are presented annually to recognize innovative southern initiatives that improve the quality of life in the organization's 13-state region - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia - and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The 2006 Innovator Awards will be chosen in the context of the Southern Innovation Initiative, a year-long series of events that focuses on the importance of innovation to the South’s economy. Each nominated initiative must use technology as an integral component to accomplish goals; be truly unique; be something more than a new product, process or service; and provide a track record or other measures of success. Nominations are due Nov. 23, 2005.

A plan to increase Maine's R&D activity to $1 billion by 2010 was revealed last week by the Department of Economic and Community Development's (DECD) Office of Innovation and the Maine Science and Technology Council (MSTAC). The level of R&D activity in Maine currently stands at $430 million.

The science and technology action plan creates a road map toward achieving the objective of higher per capita income, set forth in the State Planning Office's 30 and 1000 Plan, created in 1998.

Four recently published papers from the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia, San Francisco and Chicago center around TBED issues including the role of cities in the 21st Century, the biotechnology industry in the Midwest, state R&D tax credits, and R&D spending during recessions. Links to these papers and more than 1,000 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers can be found at the Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Resource Center, jointly developed by the Technology Administration and SSTI, at http://www.tbedresourcecenter.org/.