MATR Newsletter – August 21, 2020
The state with the best education wins!

Corona Virus Information

• The unemployed are taking their struggles to Reddit, a ‘beacon of light in this long dark night’

  A striking aspect of the subreddit is how it brings people together regardless of their politics — an anomaly in our divided America. Unemployment has a tendency to wash away differences. Socialists, libertarians and everyone in between fill the discussion, and everyone gets something slightly different out of it.

• The new corporate swag: Branded masks, sanitizer spray bottles and Zoom vanity light rings

  For businesses such as Lemonade, whose executives appeared in branded masks for their IPO, it’s a chance to demonstrate their socially conscious identity

• Spillover: Understanding the Origins of Pandemics – Wednesday, August 26th from 6:00-7:00 pm – Online

  A Community WebEx Event Featuring David Quammen and Raina Plowright

Come Home Montana

• Montana Career Opportunity – Executive Director – South Central Montana Regional Mental Health Center

    South Central Montana Regional Mental Health Center (MHC) is recruiting for an Executive Director. MHC is headquartered in Billings, Montana and is a private, nonprofit corporation dedicated to the establishment, development and maintenance of high quality mental health and substance abuse care in South Central Montana. MHC serves ten counties (many of which are…

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

• 159 Dorsey Lawyers Selected for Inclusion in 2021 The Best Lawyers in America, Lawyers of the Year and Ones to Watch

  Dorsey announced today that 159 lawyers from all 13 of the Firm’s U.S. offices were recently selected by their peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2021.

Northwestern Energy

• Montana Regulators To Consider Pandemic’s Impact On NorthWestern’s Decoupling Program

  Decoupling can be a win-win strategy to both utility companies and their customers by breaking the link between electricity and gas sales and revenue.

Montana Department of Commerce

• Montana 2020 Census Partners Increase Outreach Efforts to Get an Accurate Count for Montana

  With Shortened Deadline, Montana Department of Commerce, Montana Nonprofit Association, Western Native Voice and Forward Montana Foundation Work to Reach Montanans Who Have Not Responded to the 2020 Census

• Montana Senator Jon Tester Presses for Accurate 2020 Census Count for Indian Country 

  Urges Census Bureau to reverse decision to end Census collection period on September 30th instead of previous deadline of October 31st

• Montana Native Vote – There’s still time to get counted!

  It’s our future.

Big Sky Economic Development

• Entrepreneurs Academy: Buying a Business – 8/25 – Online – 10AM

  Learn what to look for in a business purchase, what is an asset sale vs. business purchase, valuations, appraisals, mergers and acquisitions.

Zoot Enterprises

• Montana’s Zoot partners with Vida to create intermediary mortgage platform

  The cloud-based platform will allow Vida to create an advanced ecosystem at both the front-end of the business and behind the scenes.

The Telecommuting and Gig Workforce in Montana

• Should State IT Agencies Be Recruiting More Remote Workers?

  Remote government work can have many benefits, as the last several months have shown. But whether state IT agencies should recruit more remote workers, regardless of where they live, remains an open question.

• 5 places to find remote-only jobs that will let you work from home forever

  Trade planes, trains, and automobiles for slippers, long lunches, and comfy clothes.

Next Generation Broadband in Montana

• Internet speed record shattered at 178 terabits per second

  It’s 17,800 times faster than the current fastest internet connections available to consumers – 10 Gb/s in parts of places like Japan, the US and New Zealand. Even NASA can’t compete, with its 400 Gb/s ESnet.

Montana Business

• Two Montana Companies, CrossTx and Frontier Psychiatry, Partner to Curtail Rising Rates of Suicide and Mental Health Crisis Statewide

   “We need a different approach to care if we’re going to bring our suicide rate down.”

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

• Montana State University receives $1.3 million grant to help first-generation students succeed

  “This grant is an important component of our access mission as a land-grant university,” Kearns said. “It positions our campus to leverage existing resources and to build student support programs that transform lives.”

• The University of Montana has set a new record for research expenditures, exceeding $100 million for the first time in its history.

  This is a 16% increase over the previous high of $90.6 million in FY2018 and a 90% increase from FY2014.

Rural Communities

• We Need a Strong Postal Service after the Election, Too

  Rural residents depend on the mail to deliver medicine, farm supplies, live animals, and more. The postmaster general’s cuts will be disastrous long after the votes are counted.

2020 Montana Politics

• Leaked photos show disassembled USPS machines in Montana

  A postal worker who wants to stay anonymous sent us multiple photos of what they say is a disassembled DBCS sorting machine in a Montana USPS plant. They say the stackers are waiting to be sent to other facilities.

• The nine-episode series debuts Sept. 8, 2020 and will culminate just before Election Day: Shared State A podcast about what’s driving Montana’s 2020 elections, and where the outcomes could lead us.

  “In this ambitious collaborative podcast we’re asking: What values are shaping Montana’s election? And what — if anything — do they really mean?” says Montana Free Press editor-in-chief John Adams.

• Affordable Housing Crisis Prompts States to Act: Legislative Watch
  Massachusetts, Nebraska and Minnesota are among numerous states where legislation has recently been introduced to address the affordable housing deficit. Some bills are more concrete than others.
• Amid Reports of Further Changes at Montana Post Offices, Senator Tester Pushes for Answers on Reversal

  Presses DeJoy on machines reportedly removed from Billings, Missoula and Great Falls

Government News & Events

• Verizon Council Talks Interoperability, 5G in First Town Hall

  After parsing through issues of the moment, such as community trust, defunding, recruitment and social media, their conversation offered a glimpse of public safety’s technological future — particularly interoperability and 5G.

American Prairie Reserve

• Storing carbon in the prairie grass – Plans would pay landowners to keep the ecosystem in a natural state to fight climate change.

  A pristine prairie can also be home to hundreds of types of plants. Poets and explorers wrote about the spectacular view above ground, but the real magic is what happens below the surface.

Connectivity & Communications

• 10 cool Zoom app plug-ins to enhance your video meeting experience

  Otter.ai: Meetings can transcribed in real-time via Otter

Transportation

• AAA, Electrify America Partner on Electric Vehicle Subscription Service

  AAA of Northern California, Nevada and Utah, along with Electrify America, are offering an EV subscription service in Sacramento, Calif. The service includes insurance, maintenance and roadside assistance.

• Madrid Has the Bike Infrastructure Model the U.S. Needs

  A happy accident, Madrid may have stumbled onto a bike infrastructure program with great results. Only time will tell if “slow” lanes yield long-term positive results.

• It’s Not Too Early for Cities to Craft Autonomous Vehicle Regulation

  Autonomous vehicle technology is primed to move into any number of use cases, and cities should begin the conversation about how they want to shape this new mobility horizon – or risk being shaped by it.

Cool Stuff That’s Coming

• Joint cartilage regrown in arthritic mice by a stem cell tweak

  For the new study, the team investigated what’s going on after treatment by a technique called microfracture. This process involves drilling tiny holes into the surface of a joint, and it’s seen to stimulate the growth of new cartilage-like tissue. While it helps a little, the emphasis there is on “cartilage-like.”

Privacy, Hacking and Virus Alerts

• The Attack That Broke Twitter Is Hitting Dozens of Companies

  “Phone spear phishing” attacks have been on the rise since a bitcoin scam took over the social media platform in July.

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