Category: Business/Technology

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.”

A bid to preserve a historic drug store may complicate UW-Madison’s proposal for a $375 million state-of-the-art research center that will help discover drugs for some of the world’s most serious illnesses.

The state and university are proposing to build the massive, 750,000-square-foot Institute of Discovery on a wedge-shaped piece of land bordered by University and Randall avenues and West Johnson and Charter streets.

Students at Madison-area colleges might be purifying proteins or crafting computer programs in their spare time, as interns for local startup companies, a couple of years from now.

And a new organization – a Dane County economic development corporation – could be aggressively chasing pharmaceutical and engineering companies in other states, trying to lure them here, using a new “brand” identity to market the area.

MADISON — Managers at the Sheboygan-based Acuity insurance company have attended executive education courses at Harvard, the University of Chicago and other prestigious private schools.

But as far as John Signer – head of Acuity’s human resources department – is concerned, some of the best professional-level programs he has encountered are run by the UW-Madison School of Business at the Fluno Center.

UW Credit Union customers were targeted by a “phishing” identity theft scam this week, a credit union official said Wednesday. Criminals sent out emails to local residents that included the UW Credit Union logo and urged customers of the credit union to “verify personal information” by providing confidential details.

Many people think of a co- op as one of the agricultural cooperatives that have been a staple of rural life in the Upper Midwest since the mid-1800s or as one of the community grocery stores that combine organic food and social awareness.

But cooperative businesses encompass far more than grain and granola, and interest is growing, experts in the field agree.

“There are a lot of people who are beginning to think about business in different ways. They hear about the co- op model, and it appeals to them,” said Anne Reynolds, assistant director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives.

High standards in food and accommodation are a vital part of the package in the executive education market, but there are many ways to fry an egg when it comes to providing a service.

“It’s a complete requirement, if you want to be highly regarded in executive education, that food and accommodation are first rate,” says Ted Beck, associate dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.

Instead of viewing economic development as a local issue, civic leaders in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago and the Twin Cities ought to strengthen regional ties and work together to foster growth, according UW-Milwaukee urban planning professor Sammis White.

“It really is the Midwest against the rest,” he told a group of about 80 gathered Friday for a breakfast meeting sponsored by the UW-Madison Small Business Development Center. “If we want to succeed, we really need to take advantage of the strength that each of these areas have, and the Midwest as a whole has, in order to compete with other sections of the country.”

As the woman listened to information about filing for earned income credit on her taxes, she couldn’t believe what she’d lost.

“I’ve been ripping myself off for three years,” she repeated several times. By refiling her tax forms, the woman gained $3,000 in tax credits.

She was part of a pilot project at a Staples call center in Massachusetts to increase the disposable income of poor workers. The project, which began Feb. 1, was a test run for a program sponsored by the UW-Madison Center on Business and Poverty.