The State with the Best Education Wins!
	MATR Newsletter - Tue Jul 17, 2007

This MATR newsletter sponsored by: Add an event... Upcoming Events City Club Missoula Presents MCT’s “Little Red Truck” Missoula’s Ambassadors, 7/20, Missoula Straw Bale Building, 07/21, Whitehall PTAC 101: The Nuts and Bolts of Government Contracting, 07/24, Bozeman MATR supporter: New Events PTAC 101: The Nuts and Bolts of Government Contracting, 07/24, Bozeman "Getting To Know Your Customers Online", 8/2, Online From Wyoming Annual Meeting and Telecom Policy Conference, 08/07, Kalispell ICW's Education And Workforce Summit 2007, 9/24-26, Washington, D.C. MATR supporter: MATR Web services provided by: To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page

"Long live Burning Fish." Thanks Paul and Tim.

If you're in Missoula this Friday, this will be worthwhile event. Amazing what MCT's "Little Red Trucks" do to promote Montana throughout the World. "City Club Missoula Presents MCT’s “Little Red Truck” Missoula’s Ambassadors, 7/20, Missoula" http://matr.net/events ... =1977

Boomtown Institute

• The Agurban from Boomtown Institute - Preparing for the Future - Conclusion
  "We want somebody who shows up on time, somebody who works hard, and someone who's trainable."

Come Home Montana

• Montana Career Opportunity - Loan Assistant - Big Sky EDA/EDC
  The successful candidate must have an understanding of commercial loan documentation, title work or similar processes and have a basic understanding of financial statements.


• Montana Career Opportunity - Community Development Director - City of Kalispell
  Kalispell is seeking a progressive director who is a visionary, a self starter, committed to success, creative and possesses solid collaboration, interpersonal and communications skills.

Developing Tech Jobs in Rural Communities

• Chasing Smokestacks, Stranding Small Business: Rural Minnesota's Crisis
  The Case For Using What We Have To Do More In The Places That Need It Most


• Silicon Valley firm picks Ann Arbor for office for easier talent recruiting
  “Their commitment, while small, now, is exciting to us. It helps us recruit additional companies because we can show greater clusters centered around technology,” said Finney, who referred to it as a Google effect for the Silicon Valley giant that opened an Ann Arbor office last year.


• Conference will focus on creative job recruitment in rural locations
  “Without a skilled work force, it’s impossible to recruit new businesses and industries, and we were at risk of losing our existing businesses and industries,”

Funding and Building your Business

• Ten Things Every Good Business Plan Must Have
  Solid business plans don't guarantee success. But for entrepreneurs with decent ideas, they surely boost the odds.


• Venturing into venture capital? Be ready.
  Before trying to raise venture capital, decide what you want your business to become.


• Small-business owners warned not to risk ruin building a company
  Many owners are still neglecting their own finances, believing the investment they've made in a now-successful company is all they need.


• Google offers to run small web site search engines starting at $100
  The service scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday is aimed at the millions of Web sites that either don't have search engines or are unhappy with the quality of their current search results.


• Montana Growth Capital
  We specialize in financing companies that have difficulty in accessing capital through traditional sources (such as banks and venture capitalists.)

Montana Meth Project

• Montana Meth Project ads bring in honors
  Peg Shea, executive director of the Montana Meth Project, said that interviewing kids from throughout the state and using their suggestions has made the campaign a standout.

University TechTransfer

• Transferring innovative ideas. The Siouxland Initiative
  "Part of my job, as I see it, is to look for technologies coming out of the universities that would fit well here in this area that we could base new start-up companies on or create new venures with existing companies,''

Connectivity & Communications

• U.S. Wireless Networks to Become the Next Dumb Pipes, Says Study
  Could lead to dramatic decreases in the price per megabyte of mobile data, and wireless carriers could lose control of the services they carry.

Incubators and R&D

• Cuts in grants for computer research assailed
  With that lament as the backdrop, Microsoft announced its own research grant-making priorities for the coming year, including improved power conservation in computing, better tools for analyzing and using data from the human genome, and developing ways to use the cellphone as a tool for improving health care.


• Microsoft funds green research Grant money also goes to University of Washington for high-tech classrooms
  At the University of Washington, the number of freshmen expressing interest in computer science as a major is up 26 percent from the previous fall

The Creative and Cultural Economy

• The July/August issue of the State of the Arts in Montana
  

Developing Funding Opportunities in Montana

• They turn conservation into a profit. Beartooth Capital Partners of Bozeman, Montana
  "The scale of environmental problems is so huge, and I wanted to find a way to make a bigger difference,"


• Pennsylvania puts in place guarantees for venture capital funding
  The state of Pennsylvania has agreed to guarantee up to $182 million that seven venture capital firms invest in Pennsylvania companies as part of a program to expand venture capital investment in the state.

Montana Business

• Electric car owners run on empty. Free Drive EV Inc.
  “The bottom line is it gives me energy independence,” the Bozeman resident said. “I don't have to rely on oil anymore.”


• Rehberg Secures $217,000 in Funding for Montana Offender Notification and Tracking System. AquilaVision, Inc
  “This is the future, and it’s now coming to Montana,” said Bill Slaughter, Director of Public Safety Initiatives for AquilaVision, Inc who is the prime contractor for the MONTS project.


• Crafting the entrepreneurial fit in Whitefish, MT
  Women weave both trendiness, traditions into their businesses Two teams of business-minded women are weaving Los Angeles trendiness and Indonesian traditions into the financial fabric of Whitefish.


• Crafting Kavadba in Montana
  The owner of a sports shop in Lake Tahoe, Calif., saw something he had to have: a T-shirt, its intricate screen print unique compared to his store’s current stock. This distinctive design wasn’t from New York or Los Angeles. It was from Montana.


• HuHot Grill of Missoula, Montana is one of the fastest growing small chains in the nation
  The Montana-based restaurant chain is expanding rapidly, and, in fact, is now the second-fastest-growing small chain in the nation, according to Restaurant Business magazine.

Montana Economic Development

• Refinery services firm sees Billings as natural fit California-based business may hire up to 350 people
  "Billings has always been a part of our plan," said Gary Green, Timec's chief operating officer. Timec, based in Vallejo, Calif., has been in existence for 35 years and had revenues of $350 million last year, Green said. Timec provides services to 36 oil refineries in the United States. Timec and its parent company, Transfield Services, employ 20,000 people throughout the world.


• Will General Electric shine its light on Helena? A hurdle to overcome is convincing a company it can find the staff it needs here in Helena.
  The relocation or expansion of a high-profile firm into a city can be one of the most tangible signs of economic development. But is it one of the most beneficial?


• Entrepreneurs have funding options in Montana
  Locally, most of that money comes from one of 11 revolving loan funds — funds from which money is loaned, paid back, then loaned again to another business, keeping the dollars repeatedly circulating through the local economy.


• Montana startup businesses benefit from funding programs
  The economic development industry entails many aspects of helping companies, industries and regions prosper, with an overriding goal of creating and retaining jobs.


• Montana's communities should be working together to bolster area's future
  "It is disturbing that officials from the Great Falls airport believe that economic development for one community should come at the expense of another community."


• Commission adopts work force housing ordinance. An effort to make about 10 percent of each new neighborhood affordable to people in the commission's target income range.
  The ordinance aims to help people earning between 80 percent and 120 percent of the area median income, which currently translates into roughly $45,000 to $68,000, depending on family size.

Regional Economic Development

• Fort Collins can learn about growth from other places
  We have done many things well but can learn from other areas that have a healthy economy not reliant on population growth and sprawling development.


• The High Cost Of Wooing Google
  States and cities are dangling ever-bigger inducements to attract companies, and the digital giant knows how to drive a hard bargain

Idaho Business

• Keiretsu Forum Portfolio Company, Idaho-based PakSense, Raises $4.16 MM in Angel Funding
  PakSense TXi Labels allow manufacturers, distributors, and retailers within the perishable goods industry to monitor and store accurate time and temperature data for up to eight weeks to determine the quality and safety of food, pharmaceutical, medical and other environmentally sensitive products at a very low cost.


• Micron Technology filing: 875 jobs permanently lost in Boise, Idaho facility. Legislators reconsidering tax breaks
  "Micron expects any work-force reductions at this facility to be permanent."


• After moratorium, wind turbines hold promise for Idaho
  Idaho has so much wind that tumbleweeds pile up along its fence lines and windsurfers careen across its lakes.

Wyoming Business

• Let's stop exporting Wyoming's future
  Will we use our energy boom to build long-term prosperity, or will we export it, in the form of paychecks taken home by out-of-staters?

Government

• The magic of Denver's Mayor Hickenlooper
  "In the restaurant business, we spend our whole lives trying never to have an enemy," he said. "You'll do anything - even to the point of going above and beyond what you think is fair - to make sure that relationship continues in a positive way. It always struck me that that was a more useful paradigm in politics."

Careers

• Workplace Coach: There is a skill in delivering critical feedback
  While it's not easy pointing out problem areas with someone you work with, it can be even more troubling to hear you're the one with the problem.


• Soft Skills for Managers and Aspiring Managers: Four Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence
  We are emotional beings first and intellectual ones second, say researchers. That's why developing your emotional intelligence is so important.

Non-Profit News

• Long Commutes Discourages Volunteerism
  A new study demonstrates that long commutes negatively impacts a community's pool of volunteers and decreases social capital.

Commuter Rail Development

• Commuter Rail Gains Ground In New Hampshire
  "To reduce congestion on our highways, the governor feels that it's important that we ex plore expanding commuter rail in New Hampshire," said Colin Manning, a spokesman for Lynch. "This legislation is a significant step forward."

Montana Education Excellence

• Montana State University program bridges digital divide
  Harris is one of 11 undergraduate students doing hands-on research on problems ranging from how satellites talk across space to search-and-rescue communications in rugged areas as part of a 10-week program at Montana State University's College of Engineering.

Community

• America's 10 Best Places to Live
  Some towns have everything any family could want

---

To subscribe or unsubscribe from the free weekly MATR newsletter, please visit our list info page