MATR Newsletter – June 20, 2022
The state with the best education wins!

Come Home Montana

• Missoula-based TOMIS set to add 25 jobs amid growth in global tourism industry – Career Opportunities Available Now

  TOMIS, based in Missoula, provides proprietary software and digital marketing assistance for tour operators throughout the world, ranging from fishing guides to wine tasting.

Great Falls Development Authority

• Great Falls Economic Development Top 10 for 6-19-22

  Here is our Top 12 for this week celebrating work and successes to grow and strengthen the Great Falls regional economy — Montana’s Golden Triangle. And, sharing business resources and skill-building opportunities to empower your success.

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• How companies are bridging the gap between profitability and purpose

  It’s a very new kind of environment. A whopping 62% of chief experienced officers told Deloitte that they were as focused on positive returns as on profit growth.

• The Economic Potential of the Great American Rail-Trail

  The completion of a cross-country bike trail in old railroad corridors could add nearly a quarter-billion dollars a year to local economies.

• Why investors suddenly care about saving the environment

  Biodiversity loss could flatten corporate profits. Investors are scrambling to figure out which firms hold the most risk.

Next Generation Broadband in Montana

• New Guide for Historic Broadband Funding

  A new guidebook aims to help local leaders as they shape their cases for the billions of dollars that are going from the federal government to states in order to support broadband and digital equity across the country.

Montana Business and Govt. Agency Collaboration Success

• Design firm set to begin master planning process for Midtown Missoula

  The area has ample space for infill and room for vast transportation improvements to make it more pedestrian friendly. Brock said ECONorthwest will conduct a walking audit of the corridor.

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte

• Montana Governor Greg Gianforte was in Italy during week of Yellowstone flooding, his office says

  Many have asked where the governor is, including multiple media outlets, without a response. His office responded to questions Thursday morning, saying they do not reveal the location of the governor when he’s out of the country for security reasons, but will “share more information upon their return.”

Montana Economic Development

• Streets Are for Building Community Wealth. Here’s Why That’s So Important.

  Streets designed for humans on foot build more wealth than those designed for automobile throughput, and it’s not even close.

Housing

• Housing Crash Unlikely But Experts Say Home Prices Could Collapse If Rates And Inflation Keep Soaring

  Talk of a likely housing bubble has intensified amid surging housing costs.

• Housing Market ‘In Free Fall’ As New Construction Plummets—Here’s When ‘Reset’ Could Cool Prices

  The number of housing starts, or construction started on new homes, fell 14.4% the previous month from 1.8 million in April to nearly 1.5 million — far below economic estimates of about 1.7 million starts, according to the Census Bureau. informed of Thursday.

• How Houston Moved 25,000 People From the Streets Into Homes of Their Own

  Taking a comprehensive ‘Housing First’ approach, the city of Houston has cut homelessness by 63 percent in the last decade.

• John Oliver: “Housing…the thing that sixteen-year-old TikTok millionaires can afford, and you can’t.”

  John Oliver discusses why rent has become increasingly unaffordable, what we can do to combat a system that is stacked against tenants, and, of course, Dakota Johnson’s complex relationship to limes.

• We Can’t End Car Dependency Without Disincentivizing Driving

  To actually tempt people to make greener transportation choices, Pendyala says policymakers need to look at the fundamental reasons why people choose to get around the way they do, and craft policies to influence them on every possible front. And there are a lot of them.

Montana Business

• Yellowstone Foods – Locally sourced, Montana-themed snacks find Butte storefront to call home

  “I had surgery,” O’Neal said. “I was trying to find some snacks. I was sitting around and couldn’t really do anything, and I didn’t find much on the Montana front.” He said there were a couple of candy-type snacks at the airport, but “I didn’t find anything that I would consider healthy, or natural, find snacks.”

• The World Has Too Much Stuff

  Retailers bamboozled by the pandemic now find themselves staring at mountains of unwanted stock. Here’s what happened and how it can be fixed.

Visit Montana

• With Yellowstone closed, gateway towns face a fight for survival Business owners in tourist towns fear the closure could be a death sentence

  Gardiner “is a Yellowstone town. It lives and dies by tourism, and this is going to be a pretty big hit.”
  — Bill Berg, Park County Commissioner

Montana Manufacturing Extension Center

• Montana: A Hidden Powerhouse of Manufacturing 

  When you think of states with strong manufacturing sectors, which ones come to mind – Michigan, Texas, Ohio?  You might be surprised to learn that Montana stacks up very well when compared to other states.

Funding and Building your Business

• Why You Want to Cultivate a Team of Professional Troublemakers at Work

  Entrepreneur and business school professor Luvvie Ajayi Jones on the importance of enabling your employees to be brutally honest.

Metaverse

• Meta is getting data about you from some surprising places

  There doesn’t seem to be a corner of the internet Meta isn’t tracking.

The Creative and Cultural Economy

• Here are the 7 tools that will make you a better writer

  These apps and programs can help make your writing more concise and imaginative, and will even inspire you to meet a daily word count.

Regional Business News

• Timber construction takes off with stunning Zurich airport terminal

  The building will be primarily constructed from sustainably sourced timber and will feature an attractive interior design that’s focused on maximizing natural light and making it easy to get around.

• How John Oliver helped take the issue of tech antitrust into the mainstream Two bills reining in the power of major platform operators, including Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon, could finally reach a full Senate floor debate this summer. But time is running out as midterm elections loom.

  “If congresspeople are already hearing from small business owners, sellers on Amazon, advocacy groups like mine, human rights groups, they’re now about to hear from more Americans who just got turned on to this.”

2023 Montana Legislature and Politics

• Montana lawmakers debate increasing film tax credit; advocates say it boosts local businesses

  Kevin Costner was pictured this week perusing Scheels, a sporting goods store in Missoula, while lawmakers in Helena debated whether or not to extend and increase a tax credit designed…

Government News & Events

• USA Facts – Our Nation In Numbers

  USAFacts is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan civic initiative making government data easy for all Americans to access and understand. We provide accessible analysis on US spending and outcomes in order to ground public debates in facts.

Careers

• The ultimate cover letter checklist – Use these 12 tips to help your cover letter stand out.

  One survey by ResumeLab found that 83% of respondents claimed that a great cover letter can land an interview even if your résumé isn’t good enough.

• How to become happier at work and in life

  We have established that happiness is an inside job. Now it’s time to figure out how to actually become a happier human in both your professional and personal circles. Here’s a crash course on redefining and creating happiness for yourself.

Transportation

• How Safe Are Autonomous Vehicles?

  Comprehensively addressing autonomous vehicle safety, writes Wilson, “will require cities to think more deeply about designing safe roadway environments where no car is likely to kill.”

• He’s the first buyer of the electric F-150. Why he’s the future of the car industry

  “It’s fast,” he says. “I mean, for a big, full-sized pickup truck, it’ll do, I think, 0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds or something, which is unheard of.”

• The Greater Northwest Passenger Rail Summit August 22-23, 2022 • Billings, MT

  Now is the time for rail advocates and policymakers from across the region to start coordinating to ensure the “second rail revolution” doesn’t pass us by.

• Self-driving tractors could be widespread on California farms by next year

  It’s a technology that appears to be out ahead of the vaunted self-driving passenger car.

• Amazon to start deliveries by drone in California this year

  Customers in Lockeford, Calif. will be the first to receive the option of having Amazon orders delivered to their homes by drone.

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