MATR Newsletter – September 23, 2022
The state with the best education wins!

Come Home Montana

• The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland

  Steve Case, founder of AOL, predicts the dominance of tech companies on the coasts will give way to a flourishing of startups from smaller cities.

• Montana Career Opportunities – 10 new nonprofit jobs – Montana Nonprofit Association

  Montana Nonprofit Association’s mission is to provide leadership for Montana’s nonprofit sector and partner with charitable nonprofits to promote a sustainable, networked, and influential sector.

• Taking Care of the Place We Love – Bozeman, Montana

  We need the cooperation of longtime locals, tourists, new residents, and businesses—please help us by being good to Bozeman. Here are some of the ways you can contribute to this effort.

• Montana Career Opportunity – Director of Development and Communications – Prospera

    The Director of Development and Communications is a new senior-level position that serves on the management team at Prospera with a leadership role in helping to build the organization. This position…

Montana Department of Commerce

• Montana’s First Multi-County Regional Port Authority Established in Lewistown

  Snowy Mountain Development Corporation and six Central Montana rural county governments find a modern way to apply a traditional tool to counter economic and political pressures on rural county budgets in the post-covid era.

Northwestern Energy

• Register for Invest Downtown Great Falls 2022 – 10/20 The Newberry or Zoom

  Major development is happening in downtown Great Falls. Invest Downtown is an annual event that highlights successful downtown projects, new downtown businesses and opportunities for growth and development.

  Hear from developers and property owners about development opportunities, learn about tools to assess the downtown market and financing opportunities to start or grow your business or project.

Great Falls Development Authority

• GFDA Releases FY 2022 Audited Financial Statement

  One of the Great Falls Development Authority’s core values is transparency. We are proud to be the only economic development organization in Montana to earn Guidestar Candid’s annual Platinum Seal of Transparency, the highest level of non-profit transparency.

• GFDA – Upcoming trainings: E-Mail Marketing, Boots to Business and more!

  Check out the upcoming trainings

Montana West Economic Development

• Montana West Economic Development – Basecamp Coworking Social Hour and Mixer next week

  Join Basecamp Coworking for a community social hour and mixer next Wednesday, September 28th from 5 – 7 p.m. at 643 Denver St. in Whitefish. Sponsored by Endpoint Utility Corp.

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• Montana 2022 Small Business Profile

  129,180 small businesses – 99.3 percent of Montana businesses

• Killing the economic polar bear

  According to two economists from BlackRock, there should be a louder debate about the tradeoffs between fighting inflation and well, killing, economic growth. As the United States Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates, what will be the ultimate decision?

• Butte’s Headframe Spirits marks 10th anniversary, growth of business

  “Someone said how would you describe Butte and I said, ‘well Butte’s a big damn deal,’ and they sort of looked at me and cocked their head and I saw it in their eyes and I’m just gonna say that from now on,” said John Mckee, co-owner of Headframe Spirits.

The Telecommuting and Gig Workforce in Montana

• I’ve worked remotely from 14 countries. Here’s what I learned.

  Consider my lessons your beginner’s guide to being a digital nomad

Next Generation Broadband in Montana

• Biden-Harris Administration Announces $502 Million for High-Speed Internet in Rural Communities – Montana’s Project Telephone Company $8,579,820

  This network will connect 693 people, 16 businesses, one educational facility, and 23 farms to
  high-speed internet in Big Horn and Yellowstone counties in Montana.

• Missoula ready to ink cable franchise agreement with TDS; still waiting on Charter

  The agreement, long in the making, is expected to be finalized next Monday, giving Missoula residents a choice between Charter and TDS once the company builds out its network.

• Yellowstone Fiber turns on service for first round of customers in Bozeman, Montana

  The first area includes a neighborhood off Durston Road and Laurel Parkway.

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte

• How to prevent deadly wildfires? Stop fighting fires. – Mann Gulch, Montana. — We walked with ghosts.

  We walked with ghosts.

  The afternoon was 73 years ago, something like the Bible’s allotted span of three score and ten. On a hot August day in 1949, lightning struck a Mann Gulch hillside. By suppertime the next day, 11 firefighters were dead and two were dying of their burns. A lifetime, to them, was as brief as 19 years, and no more than 28.

Housing

• Housing market correction? Here’s what experts think is ahead for the real estate market

  The Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes may be intended to give the housing industry a “reset,” as chair Jerome Powell wanted, but it also may have further confused home buyers and sellers on what to do next.

• Home prices see biggest drop in 9 years, thanks to higher mortgage rates

  “That magnitude of the mortgage rate increase is one of the largest, quickest increases in such a short span of time,” says Yun. He says the number of home sales each month is now down about 20 percent from a year ago.

Montana Business

• Missoula, Montana’s Ducrey Chocolate Maker – Experience Montana’s Own Organic Bean-to-Bar Pure Dark Chocolate Bars

  Our Chocolate is Pure and Crafted with Two Ingredients only.

• AmandaKayMiller – Turning your Passions into Paychecks

  I help creative people turn their passions into paychecks.

• Amid a massive American clean energy shift, grid operators play catch-up

  Thirty states and Washington, D.C., have active renewable or clean energy requirements, and three other states have voluntary renewable energy goals, per the National Conference of State Legislatures. And major corporations — from Amazon, Target and Microsoft to Boeing and Google — are also increasingly becoming major green power consumers.

Funding and Building your Business

• There’s one thing that makes employees want to return to the office, says a new Microsoft report

  In its new report on state of the hybrid workplace, Microsoft says successful companies are backing off of office mandates.

• Montana Chamber Foundation – Cash incentives to gain new skills for jobs in the 21st Century October 17-November 16, 2022  |  $10,000 in prize money

  This competition drives participation in Microsoft’s global skills initiative and helps the workforce become more prepared for in-demand roles in the digital economy.

  Montanans, everyone over 16yrs with a free LinkedIn account is eligible to compete!

  These no-cost training courses are offered by the Community Skills Initiative and the Montana Chamber Foundation.

• Attracting Talent Now Requires a Work from Anywhere Program

  Global mobility programs have become necessary to attract and retain top tech talent. What lessons have early adopters of ‘work from anywhere’ programs learned?

Regional Business News

• The U.S. will officially phase down HFCs, gases trapping 1,000x more heat than CO2

  Nearly six years after the United States helped negotiate it, the Senate is moving to ratify a global climate treaty that would formally phase down the use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, industrial chemicals commonly found in air conditioners and refrigerators, insulating foams and pharmaceutical inhalers.

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

• Results From Long-Running Study Bolster Case for Universal Pre-K

  “In the short term, I think one of the appeals to the business community, to many Republicans, is the workforce benefit,” he said. “This empowers a second parent returning to work, helps a single mom struggling to get by.”

• Montana State research expenditures top $200 million for first time

  “The vast majority of these dollars come from the federal government and are won through  incredibly competitive granting processes,” said Alison Harmon, MSU’s vice president for research and economic development. “This record is a credit to the work ethic, competitiveness and high caliber of our faculty.”

• City College at MSU Billings and Accelerate Montana announce fast track to construction jobs

  The Job Site Ready course is designed to quickly train Montanans in the entry-level skills needed to join Montana’s booming construction trades.

• AGATE – Montana Association of Gifted and Talented Education

  We empower students who are gifted and talented by promoting best practices and partnering with  educators, parents, administrators, legislators, community leaders and the general public.

• Touro College now accepting applications for Great Falls medical school

  Touro on track to open with first medical school class in July 2023

• City Club Missoula explores democracy, teacher pay and ‘equity’ – Hosts ‘Getting Schooled’ forum

  Several times, panelists stressed the power of local school boards in Montana. Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton, said community members can have robust discussions with their trustees, including about requirements for…

• California to become first state with bill that protects children’s privacy online

  California will be the first state to require online companies to put kids’ safety first by barring them from profiling children or using personal information in ways that could harm children physically or mentally.

Education News

• MONTANA DEQ invites school districts to apply for clean bus grants

  “We expect this to be a competitive grant process and look forward to helping districts purchase cleaner buses that reduce children’s exposure to harmful nitrogen oxide emissions.”

2023 Montana Legislature and Politics

• Montana’s Republican Legislators shift $6M from workforce training grants to biz automation loans

  But Democratic legislators and labor representatives objected to the proposal, arguing that the limited applications for the workforce training program were due to an onerous application process, a lack of advertising for the grants and a low ceiling on the amount of grant money per worker.

• Montana Legislative Interim Committee passes two draft bills aimed at taxing electric vehicles

  The impetus behind these bills is to replace revenue from a gas tax, which covers road maintenance in the state, lost from electric vehicles, which are expected to double in sales in the U.S. by 2024, according to the committee’s final report. As of January 2022, electric vehicles make up less than one percent of light-duty vehicles in the state.

Careers

• Unlock the secrets to speaking to anyone with ease

  It’s not just a moment. If you have speaking anxiety, it can take up to 20 minutes for the parasympathetic system to intervene and return you to a state of calm. Here are some practical ways to tackle it before it gets the best of you.

Transportation

• A Global Push for More ‘15-Minute Cities’

  To combat climate change, the nonprofit group C40 Cities is partnering with a Danish firm to pilot walkable neighborhoods in five global cities.

• California Governor Newsom signs ‘landmark’ law eliminating parking mandates near transit

  AB 2097, by Assembly Member Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, will prohibit cities and counties from imposing minimum parking requirements on certain residential, commercial and other developments located within one-half mile of public transit.

• ‘We Couldn’t Take A Roundabout Out if We Wanted To’: An Interview with Jim Brainerd, Mayor of Carmel, Ind.

  Since first taking office in 1996, Brainerd has made retrofitting the city’s road network the centerpiece of his platform, ripping out hundreds of traffic lights and replacing them with roughly 140 innovative circular traffic treatments that have helped slash rates of car crash deaths and serious injuries to some of the lowest levels in the nation.

• There’s a solution for building Level 3 fast charging stations in remote areas – The FreeWire charger

  The ability to charge two automobiles at once from a single source, in addition to the reduced electrical power input required, makes use of battery-integrated storage technology a time-saver for consumers.

• Like 19th Century Railroads, EV Charging Can Give Small Towns A Vital Edge Over Cities

  There are two ways things can go for small towns that make sure to get at least one rapid charger and some slower chargers put in. If the more popular routes don’t get infrastructure set up, people will come to you to get what they need. If the main routes do get infrastructure, you’re at least going to survive the EV transition.

Energy and Climate Change

• California will ban the sale of natural-gas heaters by 2030. This technology could replace them

  The unanimous decision by the California Air Resources Board is part of a larger state plan to reduce ozone emissions from a variety of industries, including transportation and consumer products in addition to commercial and residential building.

• This invention may be able to supercharge solar energy (Video)

  The invention comes from a group of Stanford researchers. It consists of a component that allows the light that reaches solar panels to be concentrated without the use of any moving parts.

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