Earlier this month Governor Jeanne Shaheen released New Hampshire in the New Economy: A Vision for Expanded Prosperity, the first-ever comprehensive economic development plan for the State of New Hampshire. The plan calls for New Hampshire state government to focus its activities toward encouraging innovation, strengthening education and workforce development, retaining and protecting the quality of life, and extending economic opportunity to every citizen in every part of the state.

Roberto Salazar is leaving his post as the Director of the New Mexico Office of Science and Technology at the end of March to assume the position of State Director of the USDA's Rural Development Agency for New Mexico.

While many states will lay out strategic plans with quantifiable goals to measure success, South Dakota in 2003 was one of the first SSTI noticed to use a specific target for its gross state product (GSP) as one of the measures. According to the latest annual review, South Dakota officials feel they are making significant strides in its goal of adding $10 billion to its GSP by 2010.

To help small businesses participate fully in the expected e-commerce revolution, Senator Bingaman (D-NM) has introduced legislation to create a national e-commerce extension program. Senators Rockefeller (D-WVa), Snowe (R-ME) and Mikulski (D-MD) are co-sponsors of the bill, S. 1494.

In the last days of a special legislative session, the New Mexico Legislature unanimously passed two technology tax credit bills. Entitled the “Technology Jobs Tax Credit Act” and the “Laboratory Partnership with Small Business Tax Credit Act,” these measures are intended to assist New Mexico’s technology-based businesses with the development of increased research investments and laboratory partnerships, especially in rural areas.

As a national security laboratory operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, Sandia’s science and technology competencies are leveraged to support several missions that are synergistic to its primary mission — to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile in the absence of underground testing, indefinitely.

Durand Smith, the director of the New Mexico Department of Economic Development's Science and Technology Division, has returned to the private sector. Marsha Oldakowski is serving as acting director of the division.

With the sustained depth of the recession, the IT crash, the rapid growth in unemployment and the speculative office construction craze of the late 1990s, one would expect office vacancies to climb and property lease rates to edge down in many cities. Following this thought further might suggest, with cheaper office space available, the need for publicly supported low-rent technology incubator space would decrease.

Larry Willard, president of the University of New Mexico Board of Regents, is leaving the position to become chairman of the New Mexico Economic Development Corp.

With a combined annual research budget totaling $4.8 billion, New Mexico's 12 largest research facilities signed a Memorandum of Agreement on May 30 to help turn intellectual property into jobs for New Mexicans. Members of the newly formed New Mexico Technology Research Corridor (TRC) include:

Bill Richardson, Governor-elect of New Mexico, has named Rick Homans as secretary of the state's Economic Development Department.

The New Hampshire High Technology Council has announced Paul Houle is the new president and chief executive officer and Mary Collins will serve as executive vice president and chief operating officer.

A $500,000 state grant approved Thursday by South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow will help create a center in Sioux Falls for fledgling technology businesses.

George Bald is returning to serve as Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development. Bald served in the position from 1998-2004.

New and re-elected Governors gave inaugural addresses in Alabama, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas during the past 10 days. Additionally, State of the State addresses were made in Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah. Building tech-based economies remains a high priority for many Governors, as evidenced in the following:

Nevada

At the University of New Mexico, Avi Shama has been named Special Advisor to the President on Economic Development. The new position will encourage, coordinate and promote economic development activities of various UNM units.

Sean O'Kane, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development, is resigning from the position at the end of his two-year term in March to return to the private sector.

Besides supporting life science research in universities, one of the other key areas states and communities are using to encourage the growth of a local biotech industry is by supporting an increase in the availability of wet lab and other biotech facilities. Biotech space, however, is extremely expensive compared to other traditional tech incubator facilities for a variety of reasons (design, HVAC, environmental, security, regulatory, etc.)

Noreen Scott, former economic development division director for the New Mexico Department of Economic Development, is the executive director for the Rio Rancho Economic Development Corp.