The Center for Advanced Technology and Innovation (CATI) Partnership Board and the Gateway Technical College Board of Directors recently held a groundbreaking to begin construction of the new 40,000-square-foot facility located in Sturtevant’s Renaissance Park.

Thomas Still has been selected at the new president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. Still, currently associate editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, will fill the vacancy created by Larry Kline's departure this past spring.

Increased funding for equity investments and a new university-industry R&D partnership program are among the pieces of legislation New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed this week, greatly expanding New Mexico's portfolio of programs to grow a tech-based economy. Most of the initiatives were included in the economic development agenda Gov. Richardson outlined during his first State of the State address in January. They are:

The Wisconsin Venture Network (WVN) in Milwaukee has folded into the Wisconsin Innovation Network (WIN) Foundation in Madison, and the combined WIN entity has become a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Technology Council.

Randy Burge has announced his resignation as director of the New Mexico Department of Economic Development's Office of Science and Technology. Mike Orshan will serve as acting director beginning Sept. 29.

After 30 years as leader of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, Robert Brennan is leaving to become a consultant to the new Office of Corporate Relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Association of University Research Parks has recognized Sandia National Laboratories for the 2003 Excellence in Technology Transfer Award. Over the past five years, Sandia has participated in 183 new cooperative research and development agreements with industry partners to jointly develop technology that is incorporated into commercial products.

Jennifer Alexander is the new president of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce.

Gov. Jim Doyle last week unveiled his plan to jumpstart the Wisconsin economy. The plan, "Grow Wisconsin," calls for a series of executive actions, private sector partnerships and legislative steps to create high-wage jobs and achieve other goals. Some of the tech-based economic development items outlined in "Grow Wisconsin" are:

Deborah Fleischaker has been appointed deputy secretary for the New Mexico Department of Economic Development.

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.

On July 16, both houses of Wisconsin’s state Legislature passed a state budget including numerous incentives for technological development. The budget covers state spending for a two-year period that began July 1. Gov. Scott McCallum has until August 30 to approve the budget; several of the tech-related items were in the Governor's first state of the state and executive budget addresses.

New Mexico

Maria Estela de Rios has been named chairwoman of the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership Board of Directors. She is executive vice president of Orion International Technologies, which is based in Albuquerque.