MATR Newsletter – September 18, 2019
The state with the best education wins!

Come Home Montana

• Montana holds highest foreign exchange student numbers in the United States

  Education First said their research shows that students love how welcoming Montanans are, and how fun they make life.

• Arrow Solutions Group – Staffing for Technology, Strategy and Culture

  Arrow Solutions Group is a Montana-based technology staffing company providing technical resources to organizations in Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. IT EXECUTIVE SEARCH TECHNOLOGY STAFFING

• Something Special Is Happening in Rural America

  There is a “brain gain” afoot that suggests a national homecoming to less bustling spaces.

• Southbound Flowers “blooms” in Florence, Montana from need for lifestyle change – A little chunk of heaven in the Bitterroot

  She was burned out and she found herself wanting to connect with nature. So, she decided to move to Montana

• Montana Career Opportunities – Ravalli County Design Instructor, Lewis & Clark County Program Director, Lewis & Clark Film Instructor and more…- MAPS Media Institute

  MAPS Media Institute is a non profit educational organization whose mission is to empower, inspire and prepare Montana’s 8th – 12th grade students to succeed in the 21st century. Combining professional media arts instruction with compassionate mentoring, MAPS helps young people view their lives through a lens of possibility – engaging with their communities as…

Arrow Solutions Group

• Technology and the Talent Shortage – How staffing agencies are adapting to the supply and demand gap.

  “Employers need to embrace greater inclusivity when recruiting and hiring and give qualified individuals a second chance at success in life — particularly when the U.S. labor market is the tightest in history.”

Northwestern Energy

• NorthWestern Energy recognized for green-friendly Butte headquarters building

  The U.S. Green Building Council awarded the utility the leadership in energy and environmental design gold certificate for its headquarters building at Park and Main in Butte.

Great Falls Development Authority

• Great Falls Development Authority Issues FY2019 Audited Financial Statements

  One of our key values is transparency. Another is return on investment for our investors.

Montana Technology Innovation Partnership

• MTIP Innovation Readiness: SBIR/STTR Phase I and Phase II Proposal Writing Workshop with Jim Greenwood – 9/25 – Missoula – 9/26 – Bozeman

  This interactive workshop will cover all aspects of writing SBIR/STTR Phase I proposals

TechLink

• TechLink – Study shows cooperative research with military labs driving billions in economic growth

  “The military’s research is based on the national defense mission but dual-use technologies are often created.”

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• MEDA Fall Conference in Lewistown – Photos and Presentations, Links and Info

  Thanks to our attendees, presenters, and sponsors for a great gathering, and especially to Snowy Mountain Development Corp for hosting.

• Ten people move to Bozeman, Montana every day.

  Part of the booming population means there are big opportunities for businesses to grow and expand.

• Tech in Montana: Raising Series B Funding in Our Own Valley

  For a long time, Submittable was a single office above a sushi restaurant in downtown Missoula, MT. You could count all of the employees on a single hand.

• Missoula Economic Partnership – Tell Us How We’re Doing: Feedback Survey for Indicator

  We’d appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us how we’re doing by taking this brief, anonymous survey with the option for written feedback or suggestions for improvement.

Next Generation Broadband in Montana

• Wireless Internet providers bridging some gaps in rural broadband service in Montana

  Can they be widely used to reach more unserved areas?

Montana Ambassadors

• Montana Ambassadors Annual Dinner & Awards Celebration – 10/14 – Butte

  We are just 4 weeks away from the Montana Ambassadors Annual Dinner & Awards Celebration!

Montana Business

• Missoula, Montana’s Submittable Opens New Childcare Center for Employees

  The process of opening an in-office childcare center has been years in planning and development.

Visit Montana

• Road trip! Uniquely Montana destinations to add to your plans

  Historic ghost towns, unique geology, art, museums and much more — Montana has much to offer under its big blue skies, so gas up! You’ll want to see it all.

• Sperry Chalet in Glacier National Park nearly restored after devastating fire

  The restoration is expected to be completed by this October, and the chalet will open in the summer of 2020.

Montana Manufacturing Extension Center

• MMEC – Upcoming Events for Montana Manufacturers

  Are you ready to change your companies culture today??

Funding and Building your Business

• LinkedIn skills tests will assess users—but will they predict performance?

  Early results show that candidates who complete assessments are 30% more likely to get hired.

Come Home Idaho

• Coeur d’Alene energy storage company KORE Power, looking to build 2,000-employee battery factory – Career Opportunities Available Now

  KORE Power is developing battery storage technology similar to that of Tesla Inc., which could lead to a manufacturing facility being sited in Idaho with up to 2,000 jobs.

Idaho News & Events

• Sunwest Bank Reaffirms Commitment to Idaho Growth – Moves Operations Center from CA to Nampa

  Sunwest now considers itself a cornerstone in the state’s economic growth and plans to continue investing in Idaho.

Come Home Wyoming

• Casper group joins effort to keep young professionals in Wyoming

  Wyoming is hemorrhaging young people, and has been for a while. Between 2010 and 2018, the state’s population of 20 to 29-year-olds dropped nearly 6 percent.

Wyoming Business

• Wyoming Legislators advance bill to gut Teton County housing rules after special interest lunch – “This is why people don’t trust government.”

  “That’s why people have no faith in government, no faith in what happens, because a group sashays in unannounced, unreported, not displayed in the newspaper, not told to anybody, and says a couple things on one side of the argument. Then, boom, a bill draft comes out.

Montana Education/Business Partnerships

• Missoula, UM Partnership Creates New Academic Health Department

  “This makes Montana just the 21st state in the U.S. to have such an academic relationship.

Universities and Economic Development

• Ohio State joins statewide effort to foster innovation and economic growth

  “Our universities have stepped up in a big way, with enthusiasm, creativity and imagination. The residents of Ohio will be the short-term and long-term beneficiaries of this program.”

2020 Montana Politics

• Great Falls city leaders preparing for 2020 census

  “We’re thinking that for every person that’s not counted in Montana, Montana will lose $1200 to $1,500 a year, and that would be over a 10 year period because the next census isn’t until 2030,” said Robinson.

Government News & Events

• Do you live in a ‘soft city’? Here’s why you probably want to

  Density and diversity—where boundaries between spaces and uses are lessened—create more vibrant, livable places and more functional cities.

• Missoula Downtown Master Plan sees update after a decade

  The plan is broken down into five main initiatives

Government Technology

• Montana offering option to notarize documents online

  Instead of meeting with a notary in person, you’ll be able to use video chat.

City Club Missoula

• City Club Missoula – Sherri Davidoff – Top Cybersecurity Threats and How to Defend Yourself – 10/7

  Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker Called “Alien”

Careers

• Why Drucker’s “Managing Oneself” is Incredibly Relevant to Your Career

  His powerful questions and frank commentary on what we need to do in our careers helps me reorient and reset on my priorities and activities.

Utah Business

• Moab is drowning in tourists, and Utah is making Grand County spend millions a year to invite more

  “I fear the locals are losing the quality of life many have moved here for, and that’s quiet and solitude,”

Transportation

• US gives three states grants for self-driving car research

  Michigan, Ohio and Virginia are the first recipients with more to come.

• A Vote On Colorado Front Range Rail Could Come In 2020 – Why Not More Rail In Montana?

  The longer the state waits, he said, the more it’s going to cost to build. Denver International Airport was built in the early 1990s and has paid off in spades for the state only because leaders in the 1980s had the foresight to invest in it.

• Report: Shared Bikes and Scooters Could Reduce Car Trips By 50 Percent in Downtowns

  It’s largely because drivers in many U.S. cities are taking short trips and sitting in traffic when they could be taking another transit mode.

• Consumer Group Accuses States of ‘Punishing’ Electric Vehicle Drivers

  The advocacy division of Consumer Reports published a study to highlight the practice of what could soon be a majority of state governments: charging electric vehicle owners an additional registration fee to compensate for forgone fuel tax revenue.

• Digital Transportation: The Future of Urban Mobility
  The physical scale and unprecedented population growth in some cities have officials grappling with how to manage their transportation network.

Cool Stuff That’s Coming

• Facebook reportedly working on fashionable smart glasses to replace cellphones

  Facebook working on smart glasses with Ray-Ban, code-named ‘Orion’

• New electrolysis technique makes cement, minus the carbon emissions

  A new method that can clean up the cement production process, removing most of the carbon emissions without affecting the resulting product.

• The Hero – Pint-sized rescue device calls satellites for fee-free help – Kickstarter Campaign

  Should the user get injured, lost or otherwise be in trouble, they manually activate the device simply by flipping a switch.

• Firefox is testing a VPN, and you can try it right now

  Mozilla announced a new product that could give Firefox users even more privacy on the web: the Firefox Private Network, which claims to be “a secure, encrypted path to the web” — essentially, a Firefox-made VPN (though Mozilla never calls it one).

Energy and Climate Change

• California Supercharges Battery Incentive for Wildfire-Vulnerable Homes

  A boosted $1-per-watt incentive will cover nearly the entire cost of a Tesla Powerwall home battery system.

• MT Lowdown Podcast Episode 36: Climate scientist Steven Running

  ‘We have until 2030 to fix this, and if not it’s too late.’

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