MATR Newsletter – September 19, 2022
The state with the best education wins!

Movie Review:

Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.

(The Wizard of Oz)

Great Falls Development Authority

• Great Falls Economic Development Top 10 for 9-18-22

  Here is our Top 17 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

• Video: Lessons in Economic Diversification From Small-Town Colorado

  Trinidad, Colorado has weathered a number of booms and busts. Now, they’re aiming to expand beyond the headlines and into a more stable future.

• Rural Electric Co-ops Get a ‘Downpayment’ on the Renewable Future

  Included in the sweeping $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act is $9.7 billion to help rural electric cooperatives transition to renewable energy sources. Although this funding makes up just 1.3% of the bill’s total cost, advocates say the investment is historic.

• Value-added and locally grown food in Ronan, Montana – The Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center

  “Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center does a lot of value-added agriculture processing, mainly for the Western Montana Growers Co-op, they’re our core partner. We’re very unique in that we have this amazing facility … the whole process that we can do here, in value adding to agriculture and working directly with producers to do that,” said Jan Tusick, Center Director at the Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center.

Montana Businesses Seeking Investment or For Sale

• Montana Startup Summit – 9/30-10/1 – Bozeman

  Tech leaders, innovators, state and local leaders, and anyone interested in the growing local tech economy have a unique opportunity to attend the Montana Startup Summit in Bozeman, MT on September 30th and October 1st. The Summit is a series of events designed to celebrate, connect, and grow the startup economy in the state, and the culminating event is Early Stage Montana’s Startup Showcase featuring seven Montana-based startups pitching their potential, and vying for the title of Montana Startup of the Year.

Montana Economic Development

• Missoula Redevelopment Agency approves infrastructure funding request to support growing Missoula business

  A growing business that’s been operating in Missoula since 1978 plans to expand its manufacturing facility in two separate phases, which will require the addition of public infrastructure and utilities.

Housing

• Squeezed out: Housing crisis looms large over the West

  It’s the worst of both worlds: Even as the historic housing-price runup slows, prices remain high and interest rates are getting higher. As a result, middle class home buyers already struggling to find a home they can afford in a place they want to live face an even tougher time.

Montana Manufacturing Extension Center

• September 2022 Montana Manufacturing News

  Are You Ready for Manufacturing Day?

Wyoming Business

• World’s biggest carbon capture plant set for Wyoming

  Called Project Bison, the facility is slated to swing into action next year and, all going to plan, will scale up its operations by the end of the decade to suck up five million tons of CO2 each year, and safely lock it away underground.

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

• How Arizona became America’s school choice lab

  What does freedom look like when it comes to education? In Arizona, supporters of a new law say it means giving families the choice to use tax dollars to attend any school that fits them best. Defenders of traditional public schools say freedom was already baked in – in the form of equality.

• Missoula Food Bank spreads word of free and reduced lunches for students
  Statistics show that 25% of Missoulians look to the food bank for meal assistance.

American Prairie

• American Prairie To Host Montana Author Liz Carlisle For Conversation On Regenerative Agriculture – 9/29 – Lewistown, Montana

  Panel discussion will focus on restoring native prairie and enriching soil health

Transportation

• This electric car isn’t carbon neutral, but carbon negative

  The students are showing their vehicle on a U.S. promotional tour to universities and companies from the East Coast to Silicon Valley.

• America Should ‘Think Round’ For Safety for Vulnerable Road Users

  Congress has not only codified roundabouts into federal law for the first time, and put them at the top of the list of examples of highway safety improvement projects. They’ve also defined them as providing “for the safety of all road users,” including pedestrians, cyclists and people who use assistive devices like wheelchairs — not just vehicle drivers.

Energy and Climate Change

• Electric Vehicles Could Rescue the US Power Grid

  By 2035, the batteries in California’s zero-emission cars could power every home in the state for three days.

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