MATR Newsletter – April 3, 2023
The state with the best education wins!

Come Home Montana

• Bitterroot Community Job Fair set for April 11 – 3PM – Hamilton

  “These are reputable businesses and we need to get job seekers there,” she said. “We have J&J Excavating, Quality Inn, both labs, Evans Ace Hardware, Bitterroot Disposal, Montana Highway Patrol, Ravalli County offices, Western Ag Research Center, Sysco Montana, Triple Creek Ranch, Bitterroot Health, Ravalli Electric Co-Op and the list goes on.”

Great Falls Development Authority

• Great Falls Economic Development Top 10 for 4-2-23

  Take me out to the ball game! The Great Falls Voyagers field is being rebuilt to get ready for the 2023 season. Thank you to the City of Great Falls for making this investment!

Montana Business

• To help Earth’s future, people are getting buried like it’s 1860 – Grandpa’s Out Back Under the Lilac

  “A lot of people said, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t know this was even a thing,’”

• New flight school, Leatherneck Aviation, to take off in Billings, Montana

  Leatherneck Aviation is making dreams soar with their low-cost flight school that offers training from Veterans, in multiple uses of the word, to propel you towards your passion.

• ‘It’s a dream’: Film production set in Pray bringing new opportunities to Southwestern Montana

  Yellowstone Film Ranch opening up Montana film industry

• People With High Emotional Intelligence Use 5 Simple Words to Become Exceptionally Persuasive

  I think it’s worth the effort of a little bit of simple memorization.

• Recruiting Retirees in Montana’s Flathead Valley

  As unemployment rates remain low and the Flathead Valley struggles to fill its workforce, local leaders have collaborated to bring retirees back into the workforce

• Maps: How Much of Your City is Parking?

  The percentage of land dedicated to parking in the central districts of major U.S. cities ranges from 4 percent to as much as 42 percent.

• Preserving Public Lands Starts With People Who Enjoy Them

  For some of us, these ideas will be new, but caring for nature means doing our best to respect it while enjoying it.

• Report details impact of recreational tourism on Montana

   Approximately 12.5 million people visit Montana yearly, spending about $5 billion

• Coming Up Soon — Trainings and Events for Manufacturers

  See the full calendar of MMEC events.
  See our website or contact us for more information on training services. We work with manufacturers of all types and sizes to provide the right services and resources for you.

C-Pace – Property Assessed Commercial Energy Enhancement program.

• Want a heat pump or induction cooktop? These startups make it easier for you to switch

  Even people who want to electrify their home can have a hard time replacing old appliances. These startups streamline the whole process.

Montana Business and Govt. Agency Collaboration Success

• How two recent laws are opening the door to bring EVs to rural America

  With the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the barriers to entry for green energy and EV deployment have been lowered for rural communities.

• Biden-Harris Administration Announces Availability of $1 Billion to Help Farmers, Ranchers and Rural Businesses Invest in Renewable Energy Systems and Energy-Efficiency Improvements

  USDA is particularly interested in REAP projects that will help rural communities recover economically through more and better market opportunities and improved infrastructure, reduce climate pollution and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change, conserve and protect farmland, and invest in underserved communities.

Biotech

• University of Montana Biotechnology Center (BIOTECH) Led by Dr. Monica Serban Earns Research Award for Submicroscopic 3D Printer

  “The Quantum X Bio System will accentuate the cutting-edge educational and research capabilities of our center and UM,” said Monica Serban, the BIOTECH director.

Metaverse

• The Internet Is Ruined. The Metaverse Can Still Be Saved

  In this nascent stage, there are opportunities for virtual worlds to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Regional Economic Development

• Cities are struggling. S.F. could be in for the biggest ‘doom loop’ of all

  This specter of an office real estate apocalypse, “urban doom loop,” transit death spiral, or “ghost towns” is filling some urban observers with existential dread. So too are reports of rising crime and unsheltered homelessness in downtowns.

21st Century Education Initiative – “You Should Care…”

• A Navy SEAL Shows Lifelong Success Comes Down to Embracing the 1-Second Decision

  Dave Goggins on what happens in ‘that’ moment–and the mindset that will help you push through adversity.

2023 Montana Legislature and Politics

• Most states don’t tax Social Security, but some do including Montana.

  Few retirees realize that some states also will try to take a cut. Social Security benefits include monthly retirement, survivor and disability benefits.

• The $7,500 tax credit to buy an electric car is about to change yet again

  A senior administration official acknowledged that the rules “will reduce the number of electric vehicles currently eligible for the full credits in the short term,” but argued it would pay off through an increase in U.S. production over the next decade.

• City of Missoula adopts new climate rules for buildings, vehicle fleet

  “This has been something we’ve wanted to do,” said Leigh Ratterman, the city’s climate and sustainability specialist. “We feel this policy can be a model for our community and how we can get to a point where we’re significantly reducing our community greenhouse gas emissions.”

Non-Profit News

• 7 Qualities of an Effective Nonprofit Executive Director

  Their importance comes regardless of whether they have been in their position many years or if it is their first day on the job. Both hard skills and soft skills are required of a well-rounded executive director.

Transportation

• Gas Cars Are Embarrassingly Uncompetitive vs. Electric Vehicles when total costs are calculated

  When a premium BEV like the Tesla Model 3 can potentially cost about the same as a Toyota Corolla over 15 years, and a whopping $61,500 less than a same-class/lower-performance ICE vehicle, it won’t take long before buyers notice.

• Elon Musk: Tesla Cybertruck Is Dead, $20,000 City Car Is Coming

  “What the world needs is a real battery-powered truck that can carry a 4- by 8-foot sheet of plywood and tow a camper once in a while. It should have room for 5 people and a dog.”

• Ford’s next-gen T3 e-pickup to be a self-driving “Millennium Falcon”

  We don’t suspect the T3 will be hauling payloads or towing trailers to alternate galaxies, but Farley told Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi that it will feature technologies not before seen in an electric truck, including the possibility of autonomous hardware so robust the driver will be able to go to sleep while commuting.

• How a Century of Transit Choices Courted ‘Disaster’

  Decades of underinvestment in streetcar, bus and train service coupled with an increase in public funding and planning priorities to make roads fast, smooth and far-reaching, help explain today’s transit situation.

• Paris Fell in Love With Escooters. Now It Might Ban Them

  Weaving through traffic and protests in the French capital shows that the real problem isn’t scooters—it’s cars.

Energy and Climate Change

• Heat pumps from Equium that leverage the energy of sound 

  The easy-to-install machines reduce CO2 emissions by 80 per cent

VR/AR, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Artificial Intelligence and The Internet of Things

• ChatGPT can now access the internet and run the code it writes

  OpenAI has allowed its stunning ChatGPT AI to reach out into the world with staggering new powers. It can now access the internet, run its own code to solve problems, accept and work on uploaded files, and write its own interfaces to third-party apps.

• The case for how and why AI might kill us all

  Forget the collapse of employment, forget the spam and misinformation, forget human obsolescence and the upending of society. Some believe AI is flat-out going to wipe out all of biological life at its earliest opportunity.

MATR Newsletter Supporters: