The circumstances leading to SSTI's 13th Annual Conference make this year's event critical. We encourage you to join us in Overland Park, Kansas October 21 - 23, 2009 to Seize the Moment. As you scan the conference website, you'll discover we're putting together our most complete and complex conference yet.

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:

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.

NIST MEP has finalized cooperative agreements to create new MEP Centers in Arizona and Rhode Island. NIST is awarding $1 million to the Arizona Commerce Authority and $750,000 to the University of Rhode Island Research Foundation to serve small- and mid-sized manufacturers in their states. Read the release...

W. Steven Burke is the new president of Biofuels Center of North Carolina.

For nearly every budget issue SSTI has prepared during the first decade of the 21st century, our opening paragraphs read like obituaries. The previous administration was ideologically opposed to the government taking an active role to support economic development, even tech-based economic development, beyond increases for university and federally based research. Spending for federal programs that support regional community and economic growth were slashed repeatedly.

J. Mike Books is leaving his post with the Indiana Health Industry Forum to become the first economic development director for the city of Columbia, Missouri. He also will serve as president of the Regional Economic Development Inc. Brooks will assume his new responsibilities on July 15.

Tech entrepreneurs in Kansas would lose a long-time independent friend and ally in their efforts to expand the state's economy if the FY10 budget proposed by Gov.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius delivered her State of the State Address last week proposing new initiatives and continued funding for several TBED programs emphasizing education and innovation as key to the state’s future economy.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at: http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

Technology-focused incubators are an important component to fostering entrepreneurial development in a region by nurturing businesses in the earliest stages of development and helping them grow into larger companies that employ high-wage workers and bring new technologies to the market. The following select announcements provide an overview of new incubators from across the nation, illustrating the vital role of entrepreneurial development in growing high-tech regional economies.

Thomas Rainey was named the new president and CEO of the Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technologies.