Louisiana Department of Economic Development announced Robert Fudickar will be the technology industry director for the state agency.

Joan Myers, president and CEO of Raleigh-based N.C. Technology Association, is the 2005-2007 president for the Council of Regional Information Technology Associations (CRITA).

The year-long battle between Lafayette Utilities System (LUS) and competitors BellSouth Louisiana and Cox Communications over the utility company's proposed Fiber for the Future project came to an end last month when voters approved the $125 million fiber optics plan by a vote of 62 percent to 38 percent.

Ronnie Bryant, president and chief operating officer for the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, is leaving to become president and CEO of the 16-county Charlotte Regional Partnership in North Carolina.

Building high-quality communities is the underpinning of long-term economic development, suggests new Southern Growth Policies Board research.

Pauli Jacobi, director of the Louisiana State University System Research and Technology Foundation, is resigning her position but will remain an LSU employee.

The Greensboro, N.C.-based Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship has a new president, Michael Hentschel.

Dan Lynch was named president of the Greensboro Economic Development Partnership.

With hopes of creating a geographic concentration of academic and private bioscience research and commercialization, the Louisiana legislature ended its 2005 session with passage of a bill creating a new development authority.

Louisiana State University's Business and Technology Center (LBTC) recently received the National Business Incubation Association's (NBIA) 2005 Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year award, recognizing overall excellence in business incubation programs. The award is NBIA's most prestigious honor, presented as a tribute to NBIA's first chairman.

The South represents 20 percent of the nation's economic activity but attracts only 9 percent of the total U.S. venture capital invested. In an effort to bring those numbers closer together, the Southern Growth Policies Board recently announced the creation of a multi-state task force dubbed VentureSouth. Virginia Gov.

As low-skill, labor intensive jobs are increasingly replaced by technology or outsourced in the emerging knowledge-based economy, a two-tiered labor market has emerged, thus presenting a challenge for workers to either work cheaper or work smarter, says a new report from the Southern Growth Policies Board. Only one of those options is appealing for those trying to improve your standard of living.

Diane Duff, former director of economic development and commerce for the National Governors Association, is the new executive director of the Southern Governors' Association.

Western Carolina University (WCU) Chancellor John Bardo recently unveiled plans for a comprehensive regional economic development strategy that would more than double the size of the campus and promote university-industry partnerships.

Sylvia Goldman has resigned as director of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, effective at the end of March.

The rapid increase in federal spending for defense and homeland security has led a number of states to establish initiatives targeting potential economic development from these activities. North Carolina becomes the latest of those states, with its proposed Defense Technology Innovation Center.

RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research organization based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., is seeking someone for the position of economic development analyst.

Two years ago, Kannapolis, N.C., was reeling from the announcement that Pillowtex Corp, a major textile manufacturer, was filing for bankruptcy. Pillowtex's failure resulted in more than 4,500 jobs lost in just two North Carolina counties and thousands more in the Southeast U.S.

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center selected John Chaffee and Randall Johnson as directors of the center's new eastern and southeastern regional offices.

With the passage of the state's biennial budget, North Carolina's small businesses are now eligible for follow-on support from the state for research projects funded under the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.

The North Carolina Board of Science and Technology, for a long time serving mostly in an advisory capacity to Gov. Mike Easley, increasingly is more involved in the direct delivery of technology-based economic development programs. The latest addition to its growing portfolio of programs is a $1 million Green Business Fund to help small businesses commercialize promising green and alternative energy technologies.