Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's secretary of Housing and Economic Development, Daniel O'Connell, resigned for personal reasons and was replaced by Greg Bialecki, an undersecretary who has been responsible for business development

State governments are poised to play a vital role in the economic recovery through their use of federally-appropriated funds and through their internal policy responses to the global crisis. Several states are focusing on innovation as a means of recovery. Massachusetts and Maine both recently released the latest editions of their annual innovation indices. These annual publications have long helped to clarify trends in the innovation economy and provided assessment of their performance relative to other states.

Lonnie Emard has been named interim director of the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management, a recently formed collaboration of business, academic and economic development organizations intended to build information technology (IT) opportunities in South Carolina.

Providing access to startup capital, promoting biotechnology, and investing in the green economy to create and grow jobs are among the priorities of Gov. Pat Quinn's Illinois Economic Recovery Plan presented during a speech in December. The governor's plan would establish an Angel Investment Tax Credit program to allow investors making an early-stage investment in a technology startup to receive a capped credit against their Illinois tax bill.

Gov. Deval Patrick announced last week a venture funds competition providing seed money and mentoring to support new business development, adding to a growing number of states seeking to boost entrepreneurial efforts during the economic downturn (see the March 5, 2009 issue of the Digest).

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick recently announced plans to develop a $100 million high-performance computing center powered by clean and renewable energy in the small city of Holyoke. The center will be managed by a consortium of state agencies, universities and technology companies including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts, Cisco Systems and EMC Corp..

Three metropolitan areas dominate the U.S. venture capital landscape: San Francisco, Boston and New York. These cities are home to about half of all U.S. venture firms and about half of all U.S. venture-backed companies. Though venture firms have sprung up around the country over the past 25 years, the three cities have maintained, and even expanded, their share of national firms and investment.

Gov. Pat Quinn recently signed into law a six-year, $31 billion Jobs Now plan and smaller capital bill supporting science and technology research and commercialization and broadband deployment. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) will administer several of the grants.

Over the past few months, several states have enacted spending plans for the upcoming fiscal year and passed legislation to support renewable energy initiatives and tax credits for R&D. While some TBED programs will face dramatic cuts in FY10, others are slated for slight decreases or will receive level funding. The following synopsis provides an overview of the 2009 legislative sessions across the following states:

Mark Lytle has been named the University System of Georgia's new vice chancellor for economic development.

Frederick Cartwright has been appointed the executive director of the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research.

Chris Coburn, the founding executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, is leaving at the end of May to join Boston-based Partners Healthcare, the largest healthcare system in Massachusetts.

Mary Jo White has been confirmed by the Senate as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Despite the global growth of the industry over the past few decades, U.S. venture capital remains as concentrated as ever in the Silicon Valley region, and to a lesser extent, Massachusetts.

Did your New Year's resolutions involve making a career change? If so and you've yet to fulfill that resolution, visit the SSTI Job Corner at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.



In addition to the new opportunities described below, the SSTI Job Corner has openings for these positions:

With rumors of recession building, several of the nation’s governors are announcing new TBED-focused initiatives in 2008 – many of which will be presented to lawmakers for funding in the coming months. In Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich unveiled two new initiatives encouraging entrepreneurship to grow high-technology businesses throughout the state.

 

Lisa Porter was named the first director of the new Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. Porter, NASA's associate administrator of the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said she will leave the agency in February.