MATR Newsletter – January 19, 2023
The state with the best education wins!

Smile – it makes people

wonder what you’re thinking.

Come Home Montana

• Openings Available – Bob Marshall Wilderness 5 Day Horseback Tour To Middle Fork Lake – June 26 – 30, 2023

  This is a once in a lifetime hunt for anyone who wants to experience the very best of a professional guided hunt on horse back in Montana’s fabulous wilderness.

• Montana Career Opportunity – Business Lending Manager – Prospera

  The Prospera Business Lending Manager is a program manager overseeing our revolvingloan funds (RLF) used to provide “gap” financing for local businesses in Montana.Prospera’s Business Lending program often provides the…

• Bottoms up! Montana website maps taverns, breweries, taps, and more

  Wondering where to have your next drink? Two Montana natives have got you covered. They created a website that shows every brewery, distillery, winery, and cider house in the state, making sure there’s a drink in every hand.

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

• Employers: FY 2024 Cap H-1B Registration Period Is Fast Approaching

  This is an important time of the year for employers wishing to sponsor a candidate for a cap H-1B visa in Fiscal Year 2024.

Great Falls Development Authority

• Montana Specialty Mills expands operations in Great Falls

  The state-of-the-art crush plant and refinery processes 50 ton a day of high-quality oilseeds and distributes their products throughout the United States with a large percentage going to the Mountain States and West Coast. The $15 million expansion will include an additional building to house new equipment and increase processing capacity to150 ton a day.

• GFDA – Upcoming Trainings: Business Pitch, childcare provider training and government contracting

  Whether you’re just getting started, looking for new customers, wanting to grow sales through e-commerce, or focusing on workforce.
  We’re here to help.

Montana Economic Development

• Destination Missoula/TBID Event Grant – Spring Cycle Open

  Destination Missoula and the Missoula Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) have an events grant fund, and you could qualify!

Housing

• New Model Could Help Break Through Inefficiencies Of Common Water Treatment Systems

  With their new technique, the duo also discovered a new system design that could make these technologies about 40% more energy efficient — and therefore more cost-effective — while producing the same amount and quality of clean drinking water.

• Montana to pause rental assistance program, citing backlog and diminished funding

  Delays in assistance are already leaving some low-income renters in a bind.

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• WeCAN Community Bootcamp – It’s Free! | March – April 2023

  For ad hoc teams from small communities in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. This is the fast track to checking a project off your community’s priority list. Great for placemaking, youth development, beautification, events, and other projects that won’t get done unless community members take the lead. Bring a project to work on or identify one as a team during the bootcamp.

The Creative and Cultural Economy

• DIY air filters can improve indoor air quality 

  More than three million people died from household air pollution in 2020.

Come Home Wyoming

• Small Internet Provider Soon to Open a Digital ‘Empowerment Center’ in a Rural Wyoming Town

  The company is funding the resource hub that will offer digital technology and a navigator for the community.

• Wyoming Moves To Ban Sales Of New Electric Vehicles By 2035

  The bizarre resolution is most likely nothing more than a cry for help.

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

• The Airplane Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Free 4-year high school aviation based STEM program needs your support

  The aviation industry, including commercial airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and aviation magazines are all projecting over a million job vacancies in the next 10-15 years.  You can help train the pilots of the future.

• Educators invited to apply for workshop in Yellowstone about implementing curriculum on buffalo

  The program recognizes the importance of revitalizing relationships between the Indigenous peoples and nations who relied on the buffalo as their primary source of food and products, the American bison, and the lands within and surrounding Yellowstone National Park, according to its website.

• University of Montana Honors College Joins Network to Train Students for Food, Climate, Ag Careers

  “Graduates of the program will enter the workforce with innovative skillsets and mindsets essential for today’s world,” said Tim Nichols, the DCH dean. “As a result of these learning opportunities, our honors graduates will prepare to address the world’s greatest challenges with system approaches that are both informed and compassionate.”

2023 Montana Legislature and Politics

• Transportation experts identify Montana’s transportation challenges

  13% of major roadways in Montana have pavement in poor condition, another 17% in mediocre condition.

  The cities with the worst conditions are Billings at 32%, Great Falls at 31% and Missoula at 29%.

Government News & Events

• City engineer talks road safety in Bozeman

  The city of Bozeman’s plan for road safety is based on an acknowledgment that no matter what, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians will make mistakes.

• Are Local Governments Leaving Billions on the Table? “Urban Wealth Funds” (UWF)

  “Communities all over the country are struggling to balance their budgets and to provide a high level of service to their taxpayers,” says Cate Ryba, “It’s mind-blowing to consider that there is this untapped resource literally sitting in front of them, but invisible in a way.”

• E-Bikes and the Bike Infrastructure of the Future

  What will the future hold for cycling and bike infrastructure? With the introduction of e-bikes, the landscape of cycling, and even the definition of a bike, is changing.

Government Technology

• Bureau of Land Management considering expanding Western Solar Plan to Montana

  “The BLM is committed to expanding renewable energy development on public lands to help lead the nation into a clean energy future, enhance America’s energy security, and provide for good-paying union jobs,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning.

American Prairie

• Ken Burns To Spotlight The American Buffalo In New Film

  It will take viewers on a journey through more than 10,000 years of North American history and across some of the continent’s most iconic landscapes, tracing the mammal’s evolution, its significance to the Great Plains, and its relationship to the Indigenous People of North America.

Careers

• Big Rigged (Classic) – Life as a 21st-Century Trucker

  Driving a truck used to mean freedom. Now it means a mountain of debt.

Transportation

• Tesla video promoting self-driving was staged, engineer testifies

  The video, which remains archived on Tesla’s website, was released in October 2016 and promoted on Twitter by Chief Executive Elon Musk as evidence that “Tesla drives itself.”

Privacy, Hacking and Virus Alerts

• ‘Pegasus’ How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy

  Pegasus is widely regarded as the most effective and sought-after cyber-surveillance system on the market. The system’s creator, the NSO Group, a private corporation headquartered in Israel, is not shy about proclaiming its ability to thwart terrorists and criminals. “Thousands of people in Europe owe their lives to hundreds of our company employees,” NSO’s cofounder declared in 2019. This bold assertion may be true, at least in part, but it’s by no means the whole story.

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