Category: Business/Technology

The city of Madison has been named the fourth-best mid-sized market for business in the nation, according to a report Wednesday from Portfolio.com.

With a population of 562,065, Madison is the sole non-Western market in the top five. Its economic pillars are the University of Wisconsin and the state government. The local unemployment and poverty rates are among the smallest in the nation and it ranks in the top five in the number of management and professional jobs, which tend to pay the highest salaries.

U.S. agriculture and justice officials heard a lot of different concerns about competition within the nationâ??s dairy industry in Madison last week, but one common theme echoed throughout Fridayâ??s workshop was that milk and cheese prices are being influenced by too few at the top. The forum, which is the third in a series of five joint public workshops being held around the nation, was indented to examine competition and regulatory issues in the dairy industry. About 500 people attended the program at the University of Wisconsinâ??s Union Theater.

Dairy farmers say they are being squeezed out of the business. They say the system that determines what they get paid for milk is badly broken. The farmers came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Friday for the U.S. Department of Justice hearing on antitrust issues in the dairy industry. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says heâ??s hearing a consistent message now — dairy producers, large and small, are hurting.

The federal governmentâ??s top antitrust investigator told hundreds of farmers, lobbyists and others at a hearing Friday that the Department of Justice is keeping close watch on the nationâ??s dairy industry. Assistant Attorney General Christine Varneyâ??s said at the hearing on antitrust issues that the department wants to promote fairness in the dairy industry, which has experienced massive consolidation in recent years. “We are keeping a watchful eye on this industry,” Varney told about 500 people gathered for the daylong hearing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. “We know that dairy farmers are concerned about a lack of choices for buyers as well as how their milk is priced.”

For all the complex issues raised at Fridayâ??s workshop on competition in the dairy industry, the question at the heart of it was a simple one: What is happening? Thatâ??s how U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., broke it down to a crowd of about 600 at Union Theater on the UW-Madison campus. The event drew farmers, producers, lobbyists, politicians and economists to discuss a dairy industry that has seen rising production costs and massive milk price fluctuations in recent years.

Dear Editor: Did you know that one company (Deans) now controls 40 percent of all conventional fluid milk in the U.S.; that in 2009 farmers received only 97 cents for every $2.99 gallon of milk and less than $1 for every $4.99 pound of cheddar cheese; that in 2008 Dairy Farmers of America was fined $12 million for market manipulation at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet the dairy giants continue these same illegal practices today?

Join family farmers, consumer advocates, and others in calling upon the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Justice to take antitrust action now:

Topics and speakers have been finalized for Fridayâ??s U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Agriculture workshop examining competition in the dairy industry. It is one of five U.S. workshops on agriculture and antitrust enforcement issues. The event will open at 8:45 a.m. with a roundtable discussion featuring U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Christine Varney, assistant attorney general for the Justice Departmentâ??s Antitrust Division. It will be held at the Union Theater, 800 Langdon St., on the UW-Madison campus.

BioPulping International, a Madison biotechnology company that is developing a commercial application for pretreating wood chips and other biomass material for pulping, has received a $400,000 federal grant. The phase II grant, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Small Business Innovative Research program, is for a sulfite pretreatment process to convert wood chips to bioethanol. The work will be conducted in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service, the Forest Products Laboratory, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and some key industrial partners, including Lignotech, Zeachem, and Catchlight Energy – a Chevron company.

Ever wonder if your business is spending more than necessary on the basic expenses of telephone, data and Internet services? Thatâ??s where Valicom Corp., Fitchburg, comes in.Founded nearly 20 years ago by Nancy Peckham, Valicom analyzes clientsâ?? telecom costs and recommends ways to make them more efficient and less expensive. A Brookfield native, Peckham earned a bachelorâ??s degree in psychology from UW-Madison and began working in the telecommunications industry just as it was shaking up, with deregulation spurring a flurry of competition followed by a trail of mergers and acquisitions.

FluGen Inc. has gotten rights from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to further develop a new class of antiviral drugs with the potential to stop viruses after a patient has been infected, the Madison start-up said Tuesday morning.

The housing conference was sponsored by the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at UW-Madisonâ??s School of Business, the Wisconsin Realtors Association, the state Department of Commerce, the Wisconsin Bankers Association and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.

Stemina also said its chief scientific officer, Gabriela Cezar, has taken a one-year leave of absence from her faculty position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to work in Brazil with Burrill & Co., a California venture capital firm that invests in life sciences companies. Cezar will continue to be the companyâ??s part-time chief scientific officer, and she will split her time between Madison and Brazil, Donley said.

Noted: Entrustet is the brainchild of two young serial entrepreneurs and graduates of UW-Madison: Nathan Lustig and Jesse Davis.

Laid off Madison construction laborer Sherman Lightfoot said his prayers were answered Wednesday when the City Council approved the $98 million Edgewater hotel redevelopment project. Council backing of the Edgewater redevelopment comes as a group of UW-Madison campus construction projects are wrapping up.

The political baptism came with fire.As a 26-year-old, freshman City Council member, Bridget Maniaci helped shepherd one of the biggest, most controversial and polarizing projects in Madison history â?? the Hammes Co.â??s $98 million redevelopment of The Edgewater hotel. Maniaci, who ousted veteran Ald. Brenda Konkel, the cityâ??s most relentless progressive, in the spring of 2009 to represent the Near East Sideâ??s 2nd District, spent her first year in office in a high-stakes political pressure cooker amid a whoâ??s who of city power brokers. Early on, she warmed to the project and eventually became a champion, some calling her advocacy courageous and others suggesting she was manipulated by a savvy developer, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and council leaders who supported the project. Maniaci, who graduated with bachelorâ??s degrees in political science and economics from UW-Madison and is a manager for Empire Photography on Monroe Street, had interned for Cieslewicz and worked on local campaigns but had experienced nothing like the Edgewater saga â?? closed-door meetings with â??men with sizable egosâ? and â??women who have mastered the art of put-downs.â?

The recent recession took a toll on many area companies, but NeuWave Medical has continued to plow ahead and was recently named a “Wisconsin Company to Watch” by the Wisconsin Entrepreneursâ?? Network. In recent years, the medical industry has been abuzz with minimally invasive techniques and procedures across all disciplines. Madison is particularly well suited to develop a vibrant, innovative biomedical industry, says a company representative. “The possibilities are endless, and there is tremendous untapped potential, particularly at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.”

After a year of passionate, polarizing debate and a final marathon meeting, the Madison City Council approved the Hammes Co.â??s proposed $98 million redevelopment of the historic Edgewater hotel.

The council, after an eight-hour public hearing featuring an A list of movers and shakers, historic preservationists, hoteliers and residents, and four more hours of questions for staff and debate, cast five separate votes to move forward one of the most controversial developments in recent city memory.

ConjuGon – from conjugation, which describes how bacteria exchange genetic information – was founded in 2002 by Marcin Filutowicz and Richard Burgess, two University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists.