As part of the 2010-11 biennial budget unveiled last week, Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed a package of tax incentives directed toward small, emerging businesses and companies that create green jobs and services. The governor's proposed Minnesota Jobs Recovery Act calls for a sizable investment over the next biennium with even greater costs beginning in 2012.

Texas leaders have fully embraced the importance that strongly supported top-tier research universities can serve for attracting and retaining high-wage technology companies and as drivers for future economic growth. With Tuesday’s passage of Proposition 4 by a solid 56.7 percent majority, it is evident the voting population of the Lone Star State gets it as well.

As one of several states working to recruit and retain companies that create green jobs, Minnesota lawmakers passed a measure to create a multiagency authority to promote, market and coordinate state agency collaboration on green enterprise and green economy projects. At the same time, legislators rejected Gov.

Rebecca Blank, the acting U.S. secretary of Commerce, is expected to be the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The Board of Regents is scheduled to vote on the recommendation April 5.

The budget agreement reached by Texas lawmakers earlier this week includes $50 million in new funds to provide grants to technology companies for research and commercialization activities under the Emerging Technology Fund (ETF). A bill to address accountability and transparency of the fund was passed in the House, but later removed from the Senate calendar despite controversy surrounding the decision-making authority of the grants.

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

In a special session on Tuesday, the Vermont Legislature enacted the state's FY10 budget, overriding last week's veto by Governor Jim Douglas. The budget eliminates or reduces funding for many programs related to economic development and TBED, cutbacks which were cited as concerns by Gov. Douglas in his veto announcement.

Seven emerging research universities in Texas would receive funding and incentives to help advance their status to nationally-recognized tier one schools following passage of HB 51, awaiting Gov. Rick Perry's signature.

The third installment of the Tech Talkin' Govs series includes highlights from state of the state, budget and inaugural addresses from governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, and New Mexico.

As governors across the nation seek to fill record deficits, many new and longstanding TBED initiatives are facing challenging cuts or elimination. At the same time, governors are shoring up support for critical, targeted investments in the economy that they say are needed now more than ever.

Not all of the news coming out of governors' offices is bad for TBED strategies. For example, just in the past week, governors in Missouri, Ohio and Texas proposed increases in state investments for job creation in emerging fields, higher education scholarships, and technology commercialization and research programs. The following overview provides highlights of their recommendations for TBED proposals in the upcoming fiscal year or biennium.

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

In an era in which many companies maintain a web presence before their first technology hits the market, broadband access has become an essential ingredient for high-tech business and growth. In many states, however, the need for broadband access has widened the high-tech achievement gap between urban and rural areas.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's Competitiveness Council has released its recommendations following a year-long study of the state challenges in the global economy. The study found that Texas lacks the institutional organization to execute transformational economic programs and will require greater collaboration between state agencies to remain competitive in high-tech industries.

According to National Science Foundation (NSF) data released two weeks ago, companies spent in aggregate $247.7 billion on R&D expenditures performed in the U.S. in 2006. Leading the nation was California, with $58.4 billion in industrial R&D, followed by Michigan ($16.5 billion), Massachusetts ($15.6 billion), New Jersey ($14.6 billion), and Texas ($13.3 billion).
 

John Hindman announced his resignation as secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

Governor Rick Perry recently announced Alan Kirchhoff of Austin has been promoted to director of Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF). Kirchhoff replaces longtime Perry advisor and former TETF director Mark Ellison, who left the Governor's Office to become associate vice chancellor of economic development for the Texas A&M University System beginning Oct. 1, 2008.

Southern Growth hired Ted Abernathy, Jr., former Executive Vice President & COO of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, to serve as its Executive Director, filling the vacancy created by Jim Clinton's resignation in September.

Steve Lehmkuhle was named the first chancellor of the University of Minnesota-Rochester, effective Sept. 7. Lehmkuhle previously was the vice president for academic affairs at the University of Missouri.