IDAHO

Students at Idaho’s three research universities have become teachers for businesses in and around the state. Earlier this year, teams of engineering students began visiting manufacturing plants to assess how they can operate more efficiently.

Idaho nonprofits, including hospitals, employ 48,700 people, or 8 per-cent of the state’s workforce, according to the report by Steven Peterson, a research economist at the University of Idaho. The average annual salary plus benefits for those workers is $43,350.

"There is no legal framework for such a thing. My point has been the days of the federal government having a reservation on the state without the state’s full involvement in what’s going on are past."

In its ninth year, TechLaunch is an event designed to educate and provide a stage for entrepreneurs and students to practice and hone their business pitch in front of the business community and has introduced some great companies to the intricacies of early stage financing.

Other states in the top 5 were Texas, Oklahoma and Utah — all of which scored an "A+" — and Louisiana which scored an "A".

When Gaylene Anderson decided on an entrepreneurial coming-out party from her tech-transfer role at the University of Idaho, she chose the biggest business-plan competition stage in the country and picked the quintessential symbol of Idaho to tout her fledgling company.

Premier is building the integrated head package, a complex structure that provides cooling to key reactor components.

At Idaho Power, more than 25 percent of the company’s 2,000 employees are people who could retire today. Within a decade, that is expected to grow to 60 percent.