With 26 percent more of its workforce involved in information technology (IT) than the national average and with IT-producing industries growing faster in the state than the national average, Connecticut has possibly felt the pinch of the IT worker shortage more than other parts of the country. Add to that the fact that the number of IT-related graduates from the state’s universities and community colleges declined during the late 1990s.

Successful companies are forced to change business strategies as market realities shift. It happens all of the time. Browse the business section of your local bookstore and you'll see dozens of titles preaching the need for companies to adopt, adapt and innovate. The continuing restructuring of the U.S. durable manufacturing sector, as alluded to in the Useful Stats piece below, is a vivid example of the importance of abandoning old mindsets for industry: change or die.

The Role of Technology in the Connecticut Economy, a new report produced by the Connecticut Technology Council (CTC), provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of technology in the state's economy. Overall, the report reveals both a strong technology contribution to the Connecticut economy, as well as the state's dependence on technology for achieving its economic potential.

After seven months on the job, Connecticut Innovations President and CEO Chandler Howard is leaving to pursue an opportunity to establish a community bank in New Haven.

South Carolina Governor David Beasley has appointed a 17-member Technology Advisory Council. The Council is to examine how South Carolina can attract technology-intensive companies, find strategies to promote high technology jobs and identify specific technologies that are important for other industries.

The South Carolina Technology Alliance has released South Carolina Technology Initiative 2000, a science and technology strategic plan outlining six specific recommendations for strengthening the state’s position in a knowledge-based economy.

Fulfilling a promise made in his 1999 State of the State Address, Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne recently announced the formation of the Idaho Science and Technology Advisory Council. The council’s first responsibility will be to develop a state science and technology strategic plan. The Idaho Department of Commerce will provide staff support for the council.

After only ten years of investments, Connecticut Innovations, Inc. achieved a net income of $21.4 million in 1999, according to Connecticut Innovations’ latest annual report. The corporation reversed a deficit of over $20 million in retained earnings accumulated through 1995 to a positive $24.7 million by June 30, 1999. The corporation's record provides one of the strongest examples of successful state-funded, technology-based seed and venture capital investment to date.

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne recently received some good news about his future when President Bush nominated him to serve as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior. The news was not as rosy on the home front for Idaho's economic future, however, as the state legislature in late March rejected the governor's plans for Idaho to take a more proactive role toward building a tech-based economy.

The 2000 session of the Connecticut legislature proved to be an active and favorable one for the state’s technology community and Connecticut Innovations, Inc. The Connecticut Technology Council summarized the session this way, “For the first time in recent memory, the debate at the Capitol was not over whether legislation affecting tech companies would pass, but which legislation affecting tech companies would pass.”

The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is the nationwide network of federal laboratories that provides the forum to develop strategies and opportunities for linking the laboratory mission technologies and expertise with the marketplace. More than 700 major federal laboratories and centers and their parent departments and agencies are FLC members. 

They may be separated by more than 6,000 miles, but tech-based economic development initiatives in Hawaii and Connecticut have adopted similar strategies to encourage the commercialization of alternative energy technologies: they're buying them. 

The South Carolina Technology Advisory Council (SCTAC) has released a technology strategy for the state. Creating South Carolina's Future Through Technology: Strategies for Developing a Knowledge-Based Economy grew from a 1995 strategic plan for economic development, Approaching 2000: An Economic Development Vision for South Carolina.

John Kotek, formerly with Argonne National Laboratory-West, has been named deputy manager of the Department of Energy's Idaho Operations Office. The office oversees the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

Mike Leavitt of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has been appointed the Co-chair of the Federal Laboratories Consortium State and Local Government Committee.

South Carolina's three major research universities were awarded a total of $30 million this week to establish the state's first six centers of excellence, according to The State, a Columbia, S.C.-based newspaper.

Gary Mahn, director of the Idaho Department of Commerce, has announced he will resign from the position at the end of the year.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford named Joe Taylor to serve as the new Secretary for the S.C. Department of Commerce. Taylor succeeds Bob Faith, who is taking Taylor's position as chairman of the S.C. Jobs-Economic Development Authority.

John Glerum, former president and CEO of Ore-Ida Foods, has been named science and technology coordinator for the Idaho Department of Commerce. Glerum also will serve as director of the new Technology and Entrepreneurial Center, to be built on the campus of Boise State University West.