Category: Business/Technology

Overseeing a team of employees may be a no-brainer for an experienced business executive, but for an engineer whose skills and education have focused on technical subjects, making the transition to a supervisory role can be daunting.
“A lot of engineers and scientists are successful in college when you crank out great reports and numbers, and you don’t always necessarily have to work on a team,” said Jan Kucher, senior project engineer at the Madison engineering firm RMT.

A panel of scientists, concerned about the remote possibility of instilling human traits in animals, has recommended caution in efforts to implant embryonic stem cells in the brains of monkeys and apes.

Quoted: Steven Krauth, academic curator of the University of Wisconsin’s Insect Research Center.

“Men seem to have a hard time understanding women, and it really is nice to have someone understand you,” says Jenny Bryers, a UW- Madison graduate student. “I don’t think losing a friendship is necessarily worse for women than for men, but we probably let it bother us more. Women generally let things bother them more than men, especially if it’s something we have no control over, something we can’t change.”

Gaylord Nelson, a former Wisconsin governor and U.S. senator, died Sunday at the age of 89. He was an eloquent defender of the natural world and a man who brought skill and grace to the practice of politics.
Nelson died of cardiovascular failure at his home in Kensington, Md., a Washington, D.C., suburb. He will always be known as the founder of Earth Day.

Preliminary placement figures for graduates of UW-Madison’s MBA program are up about 20 percent over last year, and graduates are commanding salaries that average nearly $73,000 ââ?¬â?? an increase of almost 5 percent from 2004.

That�s the word from Blair Sanford, director of the school�s Graduate Career Services office. She attributes improved job numbers for 2005 full-time MBA graduates to an improved economy and a refining of the program�s curriculum.

Based on research initiated by UW-Madison orthopedics and rehabilitation medicine professor Paul Bach-y-Rita, the BrainPort balance device uses an electrode-laden strip placed on the tongue and attached to a control box worn around the neck. Messages from a tilt sensor on the strip travel to the control box and then back to electrodes on the tongue to tell the brain if the patient’s head is tilted or straight.

UW Credit Union announced plans to build a 3,800-square-foot branch office to replace its branch at 1433 Monroe St. The new building will be built on the southwest corner of the site of the existing branch in space used as overflow parking.

The credit union has reached a proposed agreement to sell the existing building, along with about half of the parcel, to the University of Wisconsin.

A new state advisory group hopes biological products will one day power not only lightbulbs and automobiles but Wisconsin’s economy as well.
On Friday, Gov. Jim Doyle named 19 representatives from business and academia to the Consortium on Biobased Industry, which next spring will recommend ways the state can support the development of renewable fuels, renewable energy, bio-based products and the companies involved in their manufacture.

WASHINGTON – Gay and transgender workers were more likely than ever to receive domestic-partner health benefits last year, and more companies are adopting nondiscrimination policies to protect them, a leading gay- activist group reported.
But gays’ workplace gains have slowed since the ’90s, according to figures that the group, the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, compiled for its annual “State of the Workplace” report. That’s probably because of the rising costs of health benefits. Social conservatives said their resistance to such efforts was a factor.

That 1,423-foot communications tower near Highway M and Mineral Point Road eventually will be in the way again for an expansion of the University Research Park.
The tower, which has leased space on it for broadcasting, is owned by the University of Wisconsin System and managed by the research park.

A Madison property possibly worth a million dollars is being fought over by UW-Madison officials and animal rights activists.

Activists have an option to buy the property, which sits between the university’s two primate research facilities.

The North Charter Street property’s owner is Roger Charly, who operates Budget Bicycle.

Coverage of a conference sponsored by the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing, which is part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Quick-response manufacturing emphasizes reducing lead time throughout the entire production process, from design and purchasing to the manufacturing floor and deliveries.

Mentions a report last summer by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison showed a statewide decline in federal funding for workers, a slide that preceded the economic slowdown and budget deficits.

Eugene “Pepi” Randolph, a former UW-Madison athlete with a background in sales and the law, took over the ultimate sales job last fall: leading the state’s economic development arm.

Randolph, once captain of the Badgers baseball team, has worked for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and the Milwaukee Brewers. In September 2004, Randolph took over for Michael Armiak as president of Forward Wisconsin, a public-private group that tries to recruit businesses.

Since the Fluno Center for Executive Education opened five years ago, UW-Madison’s executive education program defied the drag of an economic downturn and corporate belt- tightening to raise its profile and its number of students.

The program has grown by about 50 percent since the spring of 2000, which means its biggest challenge now is maintaining momentum, said UW- Madison Business School Associate Dean Ted Beck.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz believes he sees the future of Madison architecture in five buildings.

The mayor said readers’ lists made him realize he “left out a lot of great buildings” the first time around. They included the UW Lakeshore Dorms and the UW Field House.

“The Memorial Union was on my list but I think people vote for it more for what they’ve done in the building than the building itself. It’s kind of like sex – it’s all close-ups and parts.”

Why doesn’t Dane County’s economic development corporation do more to retain and attract businesses with high-paying jobs?

The answer is as simple as it is disturbing: Unlike so many other regions across Wisconsin and the nation, Dane County doesn’t have an economic development corporation.

The glaring absence of such a force for prosperity is one of the top concerns of the Collaboration Council, a 40-member group of regional business and community leaders. The group is developing ways to promote economic growth in Dane County while preserving its quality of life.

“We are lethargic at promoting ourselves,” said University Research Park Director Mark Bugher, who heads the council’s business retention and recruitment committee. “We’ve relied too much on the public sector for our economy. Those days are over.”