Bryan Renk, a former licensing director at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, has been named executive director of BioForward, a Madison-based biotechnology industry association.
MADISON, Wis. — Campus-area bars are working with the Madison Police Department to prepare for the return of students for the fall semester.
Bar employees attended tavern safety training on Wednesday night in Madison to review the basics of maintaining safe and trouble-free establishments.
“We go into everything. We go into legal issues, what can happen to you; we go into capacity issues,” said Katherine Plominski, the cityâ??s alcohol policy coordinator, who used to work as a bartender herself.
MADISON (WKOW) — If you listen to Badger games on the radio you will hear less beer commercials for the first time in years. The university has ended a long-standing sponsorship agreements with MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch InBev for Badgers sports broadcasts.
The new Loganâ??s, an upscale sports bar in the former Angelic Brew Pub space, 322 W. Johnson St., is beginning to take shape.
….Restaurant owner Jack Bendetti said he was hoping to open late this fall, in time to woo some of the University of Wisconsin football fans who flock to Madison on game days.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency safeguarding American innovation, is impeding the nationâ??s economic recovery with its unprecedented delays and hurdles in issuing patents, said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.
Wisconsin would be one of the top beneficiaries of a broad reform of the patent application process on the front end and the court system on the back end. We may need a special court for patent issues. This is a complex field of human endeavor, so reform will not be easy. It may need the talent of a Harvard lawyer, such as Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold. He surely understands that we canâ??t lead in an innovation economy with a broken innovation system.
Toni Gunnison of Mount Horeb was incredulous when she learned she was the United Statesâ?? winner in Ben & Jerryâ??s international ice cream flavor contest.
“My first thought was, â??It canâ??t possibly be true.â?? I â??ve never won anything in my life,” Gunnison said.
(Gunnison is a marketing manager at the University of Wisconsin Press)
An historic plant disease that wiped out the Irish potato crop generations ago has been found in two commercial potato fields in Wisconsin.
The disease, phytophthora infestans, or late blight, has been confined to tomato plants here, so the discovery of the disease in two potato fields in two separate Wisconsin counties is raising concerns from state agriculture officials who are recommending homeowners destroy any tomato plants in their garden that show signs of late blight.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison plant pathologist Amanda Gevens
Unemployed University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates now have a new tool to find job opportunities.
The Wisconsin Alumni Association said on Wednesday that graduates can sign up to receive alerts for job openings through the Badger Career Network.
The network connects employers with 350,000 UW-Madison alumni. The service is available to Wisconsin employers and is expected to expand to companies around the country.
Issued in 1995, U.S. Patent No. 5,443,036 is titled â??Method of Exercising a Cat.â? If you move the light from a laser pointer around on the floor, it says, your cat will chase it.Thatâ??s right â?? itâ??s patented.
Yet when medical professor Janet Mertz applied for a patent on a new diagnostic test for breast cancer in 2002, she waited five years for a ruling â?? and was rejected. The hormone-based test, developed and refined for more than a dozen years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was deemed too obvious to merit patent protection.
Just such a delay doomed MatriLab Inc., a Milwaukee biotech company formed to commercialize a wound-healing gel based on technology licensed from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Backed initially by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which works to commercialize UW technologies, MatriLab won the governorâ??s business plan contest in 2006. It went belly up in 2007, five years after a patent application was filed for the gel, because no new investors would come aboard as the application languished.
As the chairman and CEO of independent film distributor Regent Releasing, Stephen Jarchow watches a lot of movies, trying to decide which ones his company should pick up and release in theaters.
He sees so many that he has a ritual â?? every morning, he gets on the treadmill for an hour and watches a movie while he exercises. His company specializes in foreign films, which is ideal; he can read the subtitles and not have to worry about the sound of the treadmill drowning anything out.
MADISON, Wis. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Capitol Lakes®, downtown Madisonâ??s only retirement community (www.retirement.org/madison), announced today that it has formed a partnership with Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) from the University of Wisconsinâ??Madison.
This is the first time that these two parties have joined forces, and it begins a long-term relationship that will serve seniors for generations to come. Together, they will expand their already extensive lifelong learning programs in downtown Madison and provide special benefits to UW alumni age 55 and above.
â??WAA has searched for and found an ideal partner in Capitol Lakes,â? says Bruce Beckman, Marketing Director for Capitol Lakes. â??Our comprehensive community offers the lifestyle and retirement options UW grads deserve in a cultural, downtown location. We look forward to inviting alumni to reexperience Madison and consider it as their retirement destination.â?
A recent analysis of the food purchased by the University of Wisconsin-Stout’s dining services found that 37 percent of its $1.58 million annual food budget goes to Wisconsin companies, according to a university news release.
The list of companies patronized by UW-Stout includes food producers and processors that have facilities in the state.
MADISON (WKOW) — You probably know U-Haul for its bargain prices.
You can rent a truck for 24 hours for only $19.95.
But 27 News Call for Action has heard from customers lately complaining about rising prices and shirking time periods during this weekend’s campus moving weekend.
“Moving is always stressful. We have everything boxed up. My wife is pregnant. It’s not a good time, a week before the move, to find out everything has been cancelled,” said U-Haul customer Brandon Dybdahl.
Dybdahl reserved a truck a month ago for 48 hours this weekend.
Everything was fine for three weeks. Then, with six days before his move, U-Haul called and said he could only rent his truck for six hours, instead of 48.
Dybdahl says U-Haul blamed busy campus move-in weekend.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison made two significant announcements over the past 24 hours related to research on campus.
First, scientists at UW-Madison have transformed stem cells into progenitors of white blood cells and into six types of mature white blood and immune cells, according to this press release. The technique works equally well with stem cells grown from an embryo and with adult pluripotent stem cells — which are derived from adult cells and have been converted to resemble embryonic stem cells.
The researchers believe this new technique could someday produce cells with “enormous potential for studying the development and treatment of disease.”
….Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and Cargill have entered into a license agreement for patented canola breeding technology.
Wisconsinâ??s agricultural industry has both high points and low points, according to a new UW-Extension report.
Farming currently generates more than $59-billion in economic activity, and employs several hundred thousand residents. That finding delights Steve Deller, a UW-Madison professor of agricultural economics and one of the reportâ??s authors. He says taking on niche markets and expanding beyond dairy has really helped Wisconsinâ??s farm industry.
The recording industry has settled a lawsuit against a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student accused of illegally downloading songs from the Internet.
Scientists who want to turn their research into biotechnology companies or who want to grow their young businesses may be able to tap into a new round of grant money.
The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development DWD is providing a $100,000 grant, to be matched by $100,350 from BioForward, formerly the Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association.
The funds are aimed at training up to 50 researchers and scientists to start a business and to compete in the global economy.
A branch of US Bank near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was robbed Thursday morning by a thief who apparently fled the scene riding on a bicycle, Madison police reported.
Police said the robbery took place at about 9:40 a.m. at the bank at 389 East Campus Mall.
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. invested billions of dollars in its Internet search engine during the past six years before realizing it made more sense to entrust the job to an outsider — hearkening back to a conclusion the company’s co-founders reached shortly after they started their Web directory in the mid-1990s.
Quoted: Yahoo CEO and UW-Madison alumna Carol Bartz
“Yahoo’s 10-year deal with Microsoft to battle Google for online search customers and ad sales is the boldest initiative Carol Bartz has made since she became Yahoo’s CEO in January.”
That’s the lead on a USA Today story on Bartz, a University of Wisconsin-Madison grad who has risen to the top of the business world.
High school students are learning to use high-tech equipment to solve real-world problems in a five-day camp at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Fitchburg.
Most science students are comfortable with theory but may not have as much experience with the technical aspects of science, said Josh Coon, a UW-Madison chemistry professor.
About 20 students from Madison West, Stoughton, DeForest and Evansville high schools spent the beginning of the week learning the basics of chemical engineering with scientists and engineers from UW-Madison and Thermo Fisher.
The $1.2 billion UW credit union stands to pick up a significant number of new student members after it inked a deal that will allow University of Wisconsin students to use their identification cards at the CU’s ATMs.
The deal includes the credit union opening and renting the space for a branch in a new student union building and contributing to the new building’s construction. The new ID/ATM cards will allow students to access university buildings, pay for their meals in their dorm cafeterias, get cash from the ATM and make purchases at point of sale terminals with their personal identification number, according to Lisa Girdharry, UW’s director of marketing.
Douglas Fevens is the first to admit he has little chance of altering the business practices of Internet giant Google.
This isn’t a David vs. Goliath kind of mismatch. Think more gnat vs. oncoming Mack truck.
“I realize I can’t do a whole lot, but I’m not going to just sit here and do nothing, either. I’m going to make my voice heard,” said Fevens.
In particular, Fevens is not a fan of the Google library project, an effort initiated in December 2004 to digitize and index the world’s texts so people can view resources that they generally wouldn’t be able to track down in other ways.
In our current national economic climate, it is critical we use every tool at our disposal, every advantage we have. Our actions today lay the foundation for the economic climate of our region in years to come.
Our region is unique — and fortunate — that visionary leadership from around the region came together proactively during stronger economic times a few years ago to discuss our future. What is our shared regional vision? What are our assets — man-made and natural? How can we collaborate to reach a strong, shared and sustainable future?
Now is the time that we need to come together as a region. We can no longer afford to think of competition on a small scale — city against city or county versus county. Our competition is now national and international, for resources like workers, capital and innovation.
Want to start a business? You don’t have to go far. Entrepreneur magazine lists Madison as one of the Top Ten best places to do it.
Editors called Madison “The Diversifier” for expanding what used to be a three-legged milking stool of state government, the University of Wisconsin and agriculture.
A new study of University of Wisconsin-Madison start-ups shows more than 250 companies have been launched by the school’s faculty, staff and students since 1950.
More than 250 businesses have been founded by UW-Madison faculty, students and staff since 1950, according to a new campus census project.
Project directors Anne Miner and John Surdyk say the list is incomplete and they are seeking suggestions of other firms that have sprung from the university.
Four employees of a consulting firm billed more than $200,000 apiece in five months for work on a University of Wisconsin System information technology project, according to a review by The Associated Press.
Another 10 employees of Chicago-based Huron Consulting Group charged at least $100,000 during that time for services on the project to install a new payroll system, which is behind schedule and over its planning budget.
MENOMONIE, Wis. — A healthy University of Wisconsin System is essential to rebuilding the state’s economy. Yet glaring discrepancies in compensation for the faculty and academic staff who power UW institutions in the state pose a serious threat to our future viability.
MADISON, Wis. — Nitty Gritty owner Marsh Shapiro has sold 400,000 hamburgers and been in business in downtown Madison for 40 years.
So, he said he thinks it’s time to move on, a decision that has prompted him to list his popular restaurant near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus for sale.
Longtime Madison architect Kenton Peters wrote a column for the State Journal last week lamenting the state Public Service Commission’s decision to allow the American Transmission Co. to run a new towering electrical transmission line along the Beltline.
He criticized the PSC, which is supposed to balance the public good with the interests of the utilities it regulates, for ignoring urban aesthetics in its decision.
….The 345-kilovolt transmission line, for instance, will be squeezed between the Beltline and an array of new buildings that have sprung up along the highway in recent years, not to mention the aesthetic damage to the Arboretum, Odana Golf Course and other scenic venues along the route.
Although state budget details were worked out in secret, it’s no secret many state and University of Wisconsin employees remain boiling mad at Gov. Jim Doyle for ordering 16 unpaid days off over the next two years to help close the $6.6 billion budget gap that keeps on growing.
And while the hit to the pocketbook hurts — especially for those toiling in low-wage jobs — much of the frustration comes from staffers whose pay doesn’t come out of Wisconsin tax coffers.
Quoted: Laura Brown, a senior scientist at the UW Medical School
The incubator would tap into Kenosha’s proximity to such major Chicago-area firms as pharmaceutical maker Abbott Laboratories Inc.; area universities, including University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Parkside, and local medical device makers, such as Bradshaw Medical Inc.
MADISON (WKOW) — Your favorite radio station has a dire warning: they might switch to talk radio or shut down completely if Congress passes a new law charging them to play music.
It’s part of a new bill called the Performance Rights Act. Congress would authorize a special agency to collect fees from radio stations to play copyrighted music.
(WSUM general manager Dave Black is quoted)
A large Badger-themed sports bar and full-service restaurant is being planned for University Square, taking a space that has been vacant since the $190 million mixed-use project opened last year.
Scott Acker, who owns Quaker Steak & Lube in Middleton, is teaming with University Square developer Greg Rice on the sports bar, which wouldn’t open until sometime in 2010. A liquor license application has been filed with the city.
The Big Ten Network announced Tuesday that it has signed a deal to be on Cablevision in the New York City area.
Cablevision, the nation’s fifth-largest cable operator with 3.1 million subscribers, will offer BTN in both standard definition and high definition as part of its iO TV Sports Pak.
The troubled U.S. economy hit its first turning point in January, when the stock market began to inch back up, but it will be early 2010 before unemployment eases much, Michael Knetter, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, told a conference on Monday.
Considering the view from the 13th floor’s sun-splashed party deck, you can see why developers of a new apartment tower at North Mills and West Johnson streets had the nerve to dub it “Grand Central.”
“We’re in the dead center of campus,” says John Leja, pointing out landmarks during a tour of the more than $20 million apartment project last week. “There’s the chemistry building and the education building, and there’s where the new Union South will go.”
Scheduled to open in August and with all but a handful of the 155 units rented, Grand Central is the most expensive residential development launched in Dane County in the past two years.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Wisconsin Supreme Court says a developer that claims it lost a major contract for political reasons cannot sue the state for damages.
The court on Wednesday voted 7-0 to dismiss two lawsuits filed by a development group known as Prism, which was chosen for a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee building project in 2003.
The nation could see a much needed housing recovery sometime in 2010, but unemployment and foreclosure rates will likely worsen between now and then as the economy struggles to get on track, according to experts at a housing conference Thursday at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Just try to hang on for another year,” keynote speaker Richard Green told an audience of about 100 bankers, developers, real estate agents and other housing professionals gathered at the Fluno Center.
A new electrical transmission line will be built across Dane County.
The three-member Wisconsin Public Service Commission voted unanimously today to approve a proposal by American Transmission Co. to erect a 345-kilovolt line that will extend from west of Middleton to the countyâ??s eastern edge.
The plan will follow a route along the Beltline and none of it will be built underground.
The Obama administration is dropping hints that a proposed Midwest high-speed rail network connecting Minneapolis, Madison and Chicago has a good chance of landing part of the $8 billion in federal stimulus earmarked for passenger trains.
Quoted: Noel Radomski, director of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE)
The United States is in the midst of its deepest economic downturn since World War II, but unlike the recession of the early 1980s, there is a clear avenue to recovery: technology.
That is the outlook of Michael Knetter, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, who will be among the featured speakers during a regional business summit Thursday in Wausau.
It will be the end of 2009 before the nation starts to pull out of its recession, and even then, it will take several years for a robust recovery to set in, renowned economist Nouriel Roubini said Monday.
Roubini, named to Time magazineâ??s list of the worldâ??s 100 most influential people and one of the first economists to forecast the current global economic crisis, disagrees with optimists who say the recession should be over this month, followed by rapid economic growth.
Columbus, Wis., native Dr. Mary P. Davis, has been hired as the chief medical officer for Dean Health Plan.
….She is a graduate of Temple University School of Medicine, and completed her residency at UW-Madison. She then practiced in her hometown of Columbus, Wis.
Three Wisconsin natives now run their high-tech firm out of Chicago. But if they win a statewide business plan competition, they will be coming home.
The former University of Wisconsin-Madison classmates have pledged to move Flex Lighting if they beat out 11 other finalists to win the top prize in the 2009 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan contest.
“Hopefully, this Wisconsin business plan competition allows us to get back into Wisconsin,” said Mike Casper, Flex’s co-founder and president.
Meriter Hospital, which considered closing its pediatric unit last year because of a drop in hospitalized children, is expanding its pediatric services instead.
The hospital hopes to regain patients it has lost, mostly to UW Hospitalâ??s American Family Childrenâ??s Hospital.
The city of Madison is poised to add another hoop for developers to jump through when considering new projects: how many car trips will be generated.
A resolution working its way through City Hall sets a goal of reducing the total amount of vehicle miles traveled here 25 percent by 2020. That could make it harder to build homes, offices or stores on the urban fringe where cars are the sole means of transportation.
The City Council overwhelmingly passed liquor license suspensions for two downtown bars at its Tuesday night meeting, but not before a heated debate over the policeâ??s role in patrolling licensed establishments in the city.
Madison Avenue, 624 University Ave., and Ram Head Rathskeller, 303 N. Henry St., will have their liquor licenses suspended from July 1 to July 30, in addition to having several restrictions added to their licenses. Johnny Oâ??s, 620 University Ave., will also see several restrictions added to its license.
Want to have a job once you graduate college? You might want to consider majoring in engineering, nursing or teaching.
….Technicians, machinist/machine operators and sales representatives have appeared all four years on the Manpower list, while engineers, drivers and laborers have appeared three out of four years.
In other words, there appear to be some good job options out there for those who don’t have an undergraduate degree from a four-year college.
Madisonâ??s Alcohol License Review Committee is recommending tough discipline for another troubled Downtown bar.
The ALRC on Monday voted 5-2 for a rare 30-day license suspension plus new license conditions for Ram Head Ratskeller, formerly Bull Feathers, 303 N. Henry St. The suspension, which would run July 1 through July 30, and license conditions that would require better technology to detect fake IDs, will be considered by the City Council on Tuesday.
Ram Head, owned by former non-voting ALRC member Richard Lyshek, is one of three campus-area bars to face license non-renewal hearings this spring.
Piece by piece, a framework of research and development resources is being welded into place in the Milwaukee 7 region. The recent flow of news has been decidedly positive at a time when most economic news has been largely negative.
Unlike Madison, where academic research and development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the main engine, multiple players are bringing intellectual horsepower to bear on revitalizing southeastern Wisconsin. It is the region’s best hope for the future.
It’s going to get ugly out there, folks. No, I’m not talking about gas prices or Beltline traffic. Rather, it’s the looming fight over a shrinking pie.
As much as you wanted to think Wisconsin was going to cruise through this recession unscathed, signs are pointing to a long and painful road ahead. Government officials at the state and local level are now realizing they are going to have to make do with less, lots less.
Quoted: UW-Madison associate professor of business Jim Seward
A nutritious, mouse-eared waffle could win a team of UW-Madison students $2,500.
The student-created snack, called Mickioli, is a finalist in a food product development competition sponsored by Disney and the Institute of Food Technologists Student Association.
A Madison company founded by stem cell pioneer Jamie Thomson has obtained an exclusive license with a New York medical school to turn stem cells into heart cells.
Cellular Dynamics International announced the deal with Mount Sinai School of Medicine on Wednesday.
Edgewood College business ethics professor Denis Collins is relaxing on the front porch of his two-story home on West Lawn Avenue, chuckling over the latest novel from Christopher Buckley.
Along the shady sidewalk, a pair of young mothers walk past pushing baby strollers. Nearby, a male cardinal whistles from a branch of a lilac in full bloom. It’s a classic Madison setting — one seemingly far removed from the world of corporate scandal, Wall Street rip-offs and double-digit unemployment that dominates today’s business headlines.
Fishing isnâ??t an exact science.
But Ben Hobbins, 49, has spent the past few years, with help from the University of Wisconsinâ??s Polymer Research Center, using it to develop an environmentally friendly soft plastic fishing bait.
And the scientific community has taken a liking to the IronClads brand, which was launched last year by Lake Resources Group, Inc.
Editor’s Note: G. Steven Burrill, CEO of Burrill & Company was recently in Madison, Wisconsin to honor the UW-Madison students that competed in the annual G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition. WTN News had the opportunity to talk with Burrill about the origins of the contest as well as his thoughts on entrepreneurial opportunities and challenges in Wisconsin in this edited interview.
