MATR Newsletter – January 31, 2020
The state with the best education wins!

“If anything is to be hoped, everything must be tried.“ James Madison

Come Home Montana

• “It wasn’t Wall Street that won the West, it was cowboys (and cowgirls).” Tech startups come to the Mountain West, but can they grow?

  “Boise, Idaho has gotten really cool, right? Bozeman, Montana has gotten really cool, and they have a flavor of this kind of growth there.”

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

• Dorsey Presents: Montana – The 2020 Employment Perspective – 2/28 – Missoula

  In this program, we’ll make sure you are prepared for 2020 with updates on Montana Human Rights decisions

Montana Department of Commerce

• The Montana Census State Complete Count Committee is asking businesses, organizations, and community facilities to sign up to become a “Be Counted” site for the 2020 Census.

  Sign up at CENSUS.MT.GOV

Great Falls Development Authority

• Great Falls Economic Development Top 10 for 1-30-20

  THANK YOU to all you DOERS out there making great things happen in our region!!!

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• WGA NEWS: Western Governors deliver State of the State addresses; entrepreneurship spreads across region; register for Rural West workshop in Oregon

  Best of the West: Entrepreneurship expands across region

• “We’re In This Together” – The Next Generation Analysis Project of Montana’s economic and community development tools, programs, and funding mechanisms.

  Outreach meetings will be held throughout Montana over the next four months in an effort to gather key rural, tribal, and urban perspectives.

• Paul Tuss, executive director of Bear Paw Development Corp. has been elected to the board of The National Association of Development Organizations

  “I am honored to have the trust of my peers in this 10-state region to further the interests of economic development and economic development practitioners at a national level,” Tuss said.

Next Generation Broadband in Montana

• No-Cost Broadband Program Takes Aim at Digital Divide

  NextLight, the municipal broadband service for Longmont, Colo., offers a community-driven program that puts low-income families with school-age children on a path to high-speed Internet for no charge.

Gov. Steve Bullock

• Montana Governor’s climate panel forwards recommendations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

  “We owe it to [the earth] to stop just doing reports and minimal things. We need to act with urgency. And I ask please to start using the right language … because then we can match the actions to meet up with that.” – Missoula resident Leticia Romero

Opportunity Zones

• Bozeman developers plan ‘missing middle’ apartments within opportunity zone

  Thanks to a federal tax break, the developers now have a national investor to help get that started.

Montana Business

• Film production company prepares to open headquarters in Butte

  Uptown Butte – with its historic buildings and landscape – is the kind of place filmmakers love.

Funding and Building your Business

• Brexit Instability And Attitudes To Minorities Threaten UK Startups’ Ability To Attract Talent

  Entrepreneurs should probably work on the assumption that hiring overseas staff won’t, in future, be so easy as it is today.

• Government Contracting Legislative Update – Webinar: Tuesday, February 4, 2020

  Government contracting laws and regulations often do not follow commercial contracting rules and are constantly changing.

• 5 Questions Entrepreneurs Should Ask Their CPAs to Reduce Audit Risk

  What’s clear from my 35 years of experience as a CPA is that people fear a government tax audit more than death and public speaking combined.

Regional Economic Development

• This new organization wants to help cities create a broader idea of what resilience means

  Resilience: “the capacity of cities to survive, thrive, and grow no matter what kinds of shocks or stresses they face,”

Regional Business News

• Revealing the Secret Landlords of U.S. Real Estate

  The public radio program “Reveal” has found that 30 percent of California’s residential real estate purchases in major cities, including San Diego, are being made by shell companies in cash. But who exactly is behind these companies?

Idaho News & Events

• This change may soon bring more conventions — and more visitors — to the Boise area

  The bureau is considering a novel idea: A single, universal contract for all the hotels a convention may need to use. The bureau is working with several hotels to develop the idea, including both locally owned hotels and chains.

Wyoming Business

• Solar farms sprout in southwest Wyoming

  Second and third utility-scale developments have been approved in Lincoln County.

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

• Temple Grandin to give two lectures in Bozeman on Feb. 20

  Her life and work were portrayed in the 2010 film “Temple Grandin,” and she was honored on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world the same year.

Rural Communities

• Addressing Montana’s Health ‘Deserts’

  Larger health care centers collaborate with rural areas to break down geographic barriers

Government News & Events

• Mayor Kelly: “Great Falls will NOT be receiving any refugees in the foreseeable future” – apologizes after signing letter to Trump in support of refugees

  “The national issues that currently divide us deserve little, if any role in our decision-making process at the local level. While I stand by this support of the group in Missoula, I must at the same time apologize to those in Great Falls who felt that I was making a commitment to house refugees in Great Falls without consulting the community.”

Transportation

• TSA opens permanent pre-check enrollment center in Billings and Missoula

  Frequent fliers in Billings and Missoula wanting to get through that security line a little faster could soon get some relief.

• Lack of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations a Growing Concern

  Some states and localities are starting to change the status quo.

• Tesla is close to having a 400-mile electric car, says Elon Musk

  “We’re rapidly approaching a 400-mile range for Model S, for example. So, it won’t be long before Model S has a 400-mile range.”

• Public forum shines light on Missoula’s Reserve Street concerns

  “We need to rely on each other to get things done. It’s not always just up to the powers at be.”

• Better ways to fund and invest in a transportation system for all

  This can be the year we fund the transportation future we want.

• The Spine of San Francisco (Market Street) Is Now Car-Free

  The plan to ban private cars from Market Street—one of the city’s busiest and most dangerous downtown thoroughfares—enjoys a remarkable level of local support.

Energy and Climate Change

• This Swiss Asset Firm Is Buying Up America’s Largest Solar Projects

  A few years ago, Capital Dynamics was unknown in U.S. solar. Today it owns more than a third of the country’s largest projects.

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