MATR Newsletter – March 2, 2023
The state with the best education wins!

Come Home Montana

• University of Montana struggles with short staffing, 113 open campus jobs

  With 113 open job positions on campus, the University of Montana is no exception to the staffing shortages affecting businesses nationwide. From administrators to teaching staff and dining, UM is…

• Missoula airport poised for more seats, more flights and one new route – earns national recognition as sensory inclusive facility

  Based on the new schedule, Alaska will provide three daily round trips to Seattle. On weekends, it will also provide nonstop service from Missoula to Portland, San Diego and San Francisco.

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

• Dorsey – Conducting Effective Internal Investigations: Basics Refresh and Hot Topics Update – 3/7 – Online

  This dialogue will review key practices in conducting effective and defensible internal organizational and employment investigations of all types of employee, whistleblower, and other allegations, including harassment and discrimination, retaliation, fraud, bribery of foreign officials, and other corporate misconduct.

Northwestern Energy

• NorthWestern Energy completing 76 million in electric system upgrade projects in the Billings area

  NorthWestern Energy’s $34 million Rimrock Substation upgrade project will increase capacity to provide service for increased energy demand in the Billings area.

• NorthWestern Energy considers building a nuclear plant in South Dakota

  NorthWestern told the commission in a document that the need for nuclear power comes as “we are concerned about a number of factors outside of our control that may force us into early retirement of our coal‐based generation facilities.”

Big Sky Commerce

• Missoula’s Reserve Street targeted for future study – Reserve Street Public Working Group (Zoom meetings every Tuesday at 9) & Missoula City and County Transportation Committee Meeting Times

  Concerned citizens like Kevin Davis with the Reserve Street Public Working Group (Zoom meetings every Tuesday at 9) have been advocating for such a study for years. Davis would also like to see improvements such as designated crosswalks and protected bike lanes on the popular roadway maintained by MDT.

Big Sky Economic Development

• Big Sky Economic Development – March 2023 Trainings

  Got an idea for a new business? Looking to expand your current business? Want to learn about the resources available to you?

Montana Bioscience Cluster Initiative

• The Wilson Sonsini Startup Bootcamp is Coming to Bozeman! Practical Information for Montana’s Life-science Investigators!

  The Montana Bioscience Alliance is sponsoring a one-day event for Montana life-science investigators on March 6, 2023 at Montana State University Inspiration Hall.

• 1 WEEK TO GO until the Startup Bootcamp Workshop for Life Science Entrepreneurs – Bozeman, Montana

  This event is designed for investigators, graduate students, faculty, and early-stage founders launching or considering starting a life-science focused technology venture.

Montana West Economic Development

• Montana West Economic Development – March Business Bulletin

  Disaster Preparedness Planning for Businesses
  Wednesday, March 8, 2023, 1 – 2 p.m.
  Online

Prospera Business Network

• Announcing the 2023 Ignite Speakers! April 25 – Bozeman

  Join us in fiery colors! We encourage dressing the theme and leaving Ignited!

  Purchase a corporate table for 8 guests. Your full table also includes the display of your company logo at your table for attendees to see.

Montana Business

• Employees at five Montana papers ordered to take unpaid furloughs (What’s been your experience with your Lee Newspaper subscription?)

  The furloughs will include employees at Lee papers in Butte, Billings, Hamilton, Helena, and Missoula.

• Montana Department of Transportation to expand Highway 93 study into Missoula city limits

  The agency said its study is making headway but will now be expanded to bring it up to the Missoula city limits due to public feedback. In recent months, MDT said potential improvements could include improved lighting, reduced speeds and wildlife crossings.

• B Corporations in Montana – What’s a B Corp? Are there more in Montana?

  According to the principles of the B Corporation Movement, business should be a force for good. And in this time of climate crisis and rapid change, this idea has never been more important.

• Montana needs the film industry and its jobs

  Film companies come to Montana, they spend big, they train and hire Montanans, they renew communities. The bill was bipartisan in 2019. Expanding it in the 2023 session should be easy. We must replace the coal and oil industries that are closing down.

• USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) Application Deadline Approaching – MARCH 31, 2023

  Agricultural producers and rural small businesses are eligible applicants for loan guarantees and grants to develop renewable energy systems and to make energy efficiency improvements. State and local governments, Federally recognized Tribes, land-grant colleges or universities or other institutions of higher education, rural electric cooperatives, public power entities, and Resource Conservation & Development Councils (as defined in 16 USC §3451) are eligible applicants for grants to conduct energy audits and provide development assistance.

• BLM explores utility-scale solar in Montana

  The effort is part of a broader federal initiative to permit enough renewable energy on public land to power five million homes by 2025.

Next Generation Broadband in Montana

• How Infrastructure Funding is Bringing High-Speed Internet to Hard-to-Reach Places

  A fresh round of funds was pumped into the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ReConnect Broadband project when the infrastructure bill passed a year ago. That investment is bringing connectivity to some of the most rugged and remote corners of the country.

Housing

• Central Heat Pump Water Heaters Can Act As Massive Water Batteries, Seattle Pilot Project Shows

  Water heaters in multi-family and commercial buildings can be important players because they have more water storage capacity concentrated in one system.

• This 3D Printed Community Is Printing One House per Week for a Year

  3D printing has been slowly but surely ramping up as a viable construction technology, with communities of 3D printed homes being built in California, Virginia, Texas, and Mexico, among others. Now a new development on the other side of the Atlantic is joining this list.

Montana Manufacturing Extension Center

• March Events for Montana Manufacturers

  Take advantage of these events to connect and improve.

Regional Business News

• Battery-free autonomous robots

  CaPow’s internal receiver and power bank free up 90 per cent of the space that a traditional battery would use, reducing the weight of the robots as well as providing room for additional use options.

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

• Montana Public Library Patrons Have Access to Free Online Classes through Universal Class

  Through Montana’s public libraries, Montanans have free access to 600+ self-paced courses in a service called Universal Class. Click here to find out more, and how to get access to free, high-quality learning!

2023 Montana Legislature and Politics

• Missoula, Bozeman frustrated as Legislature shuns local control and plastics mount

  When Bozeman Rep. Ed Stafman addressed members of a House committee this month, he expressed concern that the Legislature had incrementally taken power away from Montana cities and their citizens and given it instead to lawmakers from the far-from corners of the state.

• Time to reassess Montana’s tax exempt properties

  How many buildings in Montana get fire and police protection for free?

Non-Profit News

• The 10 most innovative nonprofits of 2023

  Nonprofit organizations—like the Holdfast Collective, Workers United, and GiveDirectly—showed in 2023 that they can be as innovative as any for-profit company.

Transportation

• The “Last Drop of Diesel” Cartel – USPS Orders 9,250 Ford E-Transit Vans & 14,000 EV Charging Stations

  Looking back to those days in the early 2010s, I’m struck by how wrong truckmakers have been on almost everything I’ve ever worked on. Europe’s lawmakers would do well to remember that when they get a visit from the representatives of the “last drop of diesel” cartel.

• Waymo’s L.A. Robotaxi Fleet Is Going Fully Driverless

  Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s multibillion-dollar bet on self-driving cars and trucks, is pulling the human safety drivers out of its robotaxi test fleet in Los Angeles as it works to launch a commercial ride service in the second-biggest U.S. city.

• Report: US Pedestrian Death Rate Increased 9x Faster Than Population During COVID

  U.S. drivers killed 3,434 people on foot in the first six months of 2022, an increase of 5 percent over the same period the prior year — and a staggering 18 percent increase over the number of walkers who died in early 2019, the last year before the pandemic, according to the latest fatality estimates from the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Energy and Climate Change

• The Dream of Mini Nuclear Plants Hangs in the Balance

  A cluster of reactors that are just 9 feet in diameter is supposed to start a nuclear energy resurgence. Mounting costs may doom the project.

• Ice Sheet Collapse at Both Poles to Start Sooner Than Expected, Study Warns

  Even if we manage to stabilize Earth’s temperatures by peaking at 2 °C, Greenland’s and Antarctica’s vast ice sheets are on track for irreversible melting, a new study warns.

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