The Brink Lounge is banning hip-hop shows indefinitely after 16 Madison police officers responded to a call from a Valentine’s Day hip-hop party where a fight broke out close to bar time.
Quoted: UPFRONT asks a nationally recognized economist, Mike Knetter of the UW School of Business, for his opinion of the stimulus package. (Video.)
Quoted: UW-Madison associate professor of business Jim Seward.
Quoted: Alisa Robertson, assistant dean for alumni and corporate relations at the Wisconsin School of Business, at UW-Madison.
Despite the tough economy, the Big Ten Network turned a profit for the first time in the final quarter of 2008.
Signing all those deals with cable companies like Charter, Comcast and Time Warner for last football season set up BTN, a join venture of the 11 Big Ten universities and News Corp.’s Fox.
The profit will mean more money for the Big Ten universities, which are guaranteed a certain amount of money and share any profits as well.
The continued growth of the UW-Madison Institutes for Discovery and how that $150 million project fits into Wisconsin’s $1.1 billion academic research engine will be the topic of the Feb. 24 luncheon meeting of the Wisconsin Innovation Network in Madison.
The event starts at 11:30 a.m. and the presentation at 12:30 p.m. at the Sheraton hotel, 706 John Nolen Drive.
The Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus is home to Wisconsin’s first licensed Peet’s Coffee & Tea shop. The coffee and tea house, located on the Union’s first floor across from Der Rathskeller, is celebrating its grand opening through Feb. 14 with samplings and door prizes such as mugs and T-shirts.
The Wisconsin Biotechnology and Medical Device Association is changing its name to BioForward Inc.
The announcement was made Wednesday at the association’s monthly breakfast at the MGE Innovation Center in University Research Park.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — No general sales or income tax increases or furloughs of state workers are in the Democratic plan released Wednesday to begin fixing Wisconsin’s $5.7 billion budget shortfall.
Gov. Jim Doyle said he had no current plans to furlough state workers, as is happening in other cash-strapped states, but it remains an option.
Will the combination of a deep economic slowdown, coupled with improvements in energy efficiency, preclude the need for a new $250 million high-voltage electric transmission line across Dane County?
It’s a question some are asking as more factories close at the same time President Obama is calling for a greening of the nation’s century-old electric system.
Last week, the Madison City Council approved hiring a consultant to study the economics of a new 345-kilovolt transmission line and to determine whether it is warranted. The city previously hired a consultant to study putting the line underground or somewhere other than along the Beltline highway as proposed.
Noted: Mike Knetter, dean of the UW-Madison School of Business and a UW-Eau Claire graduate, was the event’s keynote speaker. He also has worked as senior staff economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors for former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Although Knetter acknowledged the damaging recession and an economy that’s been particularly hard-hit in the past five months, he said the previous 15 to 20 years were a period of favorable unemployment rates, solid gross domestic product growth, increased values for the Standard and Poor’s 500 and improvements in labor productivity.
It was all about economic stimulus Monday night as the Madison Plan Commission approved a new Hy-Vee grocery store at Westgate Mall despite conflicts with the city’s long-range plans for the site.
….Also Monday night, the commission approved a $14 million apartment and retail development at the corner of Regent and Park Streets, the former site of Josie’s Spaghetti House.
Madison developer Tom Degen is pursuing a 65-unit, six-story project at the corner, including about 4,250 square feet of ground-level retail space – enough for two or three tenants – and an underground parking lot providing 31 of about 45 parking spaces on the site.
The developer has said he is looking to attract upperclassmen and graduate students from UW-Madison as well as professionals working in the nearby hospitals.
This interview with Mark Bugher, director of Madison’s University Research Park, was conducted as the Tech Council’s report on the economic value of academic R&D was released.
An innovation hothouse like Madison’s University Research Park will be a part of every school in the UW System if a new Board of Regents task force meets its expectations.
Aiming for sweeping change, UW System President Kevin Reilly said Friday he’s pulling together a high-profile group to uncover roadblocks that need to be removed and incentives that need to be put into place to move more university research into the hands of Wisconsin businesses and start-up companies.
UW-Madison officials announced Thursday the university will no longer do business with Russell Athletics, which makes apparel with the UW logo, because the company might be violating workersâ?? rights.
As graduation approaches and the economy continues to weaken, entering a weakening job market is a daunting task for soon-to-be University of Wisconsin graduates.
The University of Wisconsin announced Thursday it will not continue its business practices with apparel producer Russell Athletic after their current licensing agreement expires in March.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will no longer do business with a clothing manufacturer that allegedly closed a plant in Honduras after workers began unionizing, university officials said Thursday.
The most ridiculously named conference the University of Wisconsin has held in many years went off without a hitch Thursday, as a crowd of elitists put on their blinders and whined about how their cherished illusions are being challenged.
The “Free Trade Under Threat” session at Grainger Hall, which was promoted by the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, the UW-Madison Center for International Business Education and Research and the Madison International Trade Association, featured as its whiner-in-chief Paul Blustein, of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
Downtown residents and Madison City Council members found themselves facing a difficult decision Tuesday night when asked to approve a proposed apartment complex adjacent to the Acacia fraternity, ultimately shooting down the proposal.
OK, I get the part about fixing up the bridges and roads.
But can somebody explain again how the $900 billion economic stimulus package is going to replace the millions of jobs being shed as the air continues to rush out of the greed bubble?
Quoted: Carolyn Heinrich, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, and Phil O’Leary, professor in the Department of Engineering Professional Development
A Wisconsin paper company researcher has been chosen to head the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative (WBI), a public-private partnership formed to make the state a leader in developing clean, renewable energy.
Troy Runge, research director at Kimberly-Clark Corp., was announced as the director of WBI on Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Energy selected UW-Madison in 2008 as the site of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, so the WBI is expected to be a catalyst in getting public and private ideas to move forward on clean energy.
By the slimmest of margins, Madison’s City Council voted Tuesday night against a downtown project that partnered a fraternity house with a local developer.
The development paired historic renovation developer the Alexander Co. with the Acacia House, 222 W. Langdon St., in order to bring much-needed improvements to the historic building. The plan involved turning the house into a combined fraternity and apartment building and adding an 18-unit apartment building behind the historic building on a gravel parking lot.
Students dressed to impress for this years Spring Career Expo.
With 115 companies including Geico, General Electric and Epic, it was a buffet of jobs and these potential grads are hungry.
“Be confident, go in and talk to people. Hopefully my confidence will reflect how the conversation goes,” says UW student Sunchit Mulmuley.
It’s hard to find any good news on the job front and hundreds of graduating college seniors are doing their best to stay optimistic.
Tuesday night at the UW sponsored job fair it was hard to do.
Some students say they feel a little bit cursed, like they’re graduating at the worst possible time.
It has them reaching for anything they can get.
From construction to factory work and even retail the jobs keep disappearing.
A Madison firm has developed a bacteria-fighting skin substitute that should help prevent infection from burns and other severe skin injuries.
Stratatech Corp. announced the innovation Tuesday in an article published online by the journal Molecular Therapy.
The bacteria-fighting skin substitute was developed without using a virus, which is believed to be the first time such an approach has been successful.
Sarah Manski was talking to Sara Alvarado early last November when she was struck by a bolt of inspiration. A green-business entrepreneur, web designer, consultant, print and radio journalist and UW-Madison graduate student in life sciences communications, Manski was interviewing the principal of the Alvarado Real Estate Group about the firm’s green orientation. Manski was impressed by the way Alvarado had networked her business with green builders and contractors, and got to wondering about the way green ideas spread from business to business.
MANITOWOC, Wis. (AP) — The University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc will hold a teach-in Thursday to educate the public about global warming.
UW-Manitowoc is one of more than 500 schools and organizations nationwide that plan to participate in the National Teach-In on Global Warming Solutions.
The trend of small and midsize dairy farms closing will probably accelerate after having slowed in 2007 and 2008, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison dairy specialists.
Noted: Then there is the fact that companies often continue to see high turnover, always a destabilizer, even after the layoffs are done. A study by Charlie Trevor and Anthony Nyberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that companies with big staff cuts saw, on average, an annual turnover rate of 13%, compared with 10.4% for firms with no layoffs.
Call them crazy for buying a bankrupt retail store amid the toughest economy in a generation. But the owners of Campus Sport Sportswear think the concept of selling sweats, T-shirts and hats to college kids remains a sound business model.
Local businessman Mark Dunbar and two partners have purchased the leases of former Steve & Barry’s stores, one in Madison and one in East Lansing, Mich. They now operate as Campus Street Sportswear.
Anyone looking to party hard after the 28th annual Crazylegs Classic run April 25 may have to find an outdoor venue other than the Stadium Bar.
The city of Madison is taking steps to crack down on alleged violations at the huge beer garden across from Camp Randall Stadium, which can legally hold up to 2,500 patrons.
Among the changes: limiting the operation of the Stadium Bar beer garden to just UW home football games.
It could be an uphill climb to lobby for more higher education funding in the current economic climate, but a new report from the Wisconsin Technology Council argues that the state would reap economic benefits by reversing the downward trend in support of its university system.
Citing the link between academic research and job creation, the report concludes that unless the state begins to reverse the slide in higher education funding, it could become an â??also-ranâ? in the knowledge economy.
….Over the past few years, Madison has become one of the Midwest’s leading centers for what the cosmetic industry likes to call the “enhancement” and “rejuvenation” of faces, bodies and, some insist, souls.
“The number of people doing good work here has increased exponentially,” said plastic surgeon John Siebert, recently recruited from New York by the University of Wisconsin-Madison to help staff a sleek new cosmetic surgery clinic called Transformations. “People used to hop on an airplane and travel. Now, it’s right in your backyard.”
The Acacia Fraternity house, a stately three-story Tudor revival built in 1927 at 222 Langdon St., is badly in need of expensive repairs.
To pay for the redevelopment, the fraternity has formed a joint venture with the Alexander Company that calls for a new five-story apartment with 18 units to be built in a gravel parking lot fronting Lake Lawn Place.
But plans by the developer to renovate the historic frat house on the UW-Madison campus, and squeeze an upscale apartment building behind it, remain up in the air.
University of Wisconsin officials say they are launching important initiatives designed to deal with conflict of interest policies at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly and UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin made those comments in a letter sent Monday to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
“A task force was established for this purpose, with the goal of identifying, managing and eliminating conflicts of interest in clinical care,” the letter stated.
The city of Madison’s new economic development director appears energetic and knowledgeable — especially when it comes to regional cooperation and high-tech economic development.
The hiring of Timothy Cooley last week suggests Madison is making progress on the important task of encouraging job creation and high-paying jobs.
Milwaukee Electric maintains partnerships with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
Young Wisconsin companies raised $75 million of venture capital last year – less than a year earlier, but in line with national trends.
Nationally, venture capitalists invested $28.3 billion in 3,808 deals in 2008.
That represented an 8% decline in dollars and a 4% decline in the number of deals, according to the MoneyTree Report, released today by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
A new program is being established in Wisconsin to help biotechnology companies take discoveries from the lab to the market.
The program is run by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Engineering and the Small Business Development Center. They will work with firms NeoClone in Madison, Catalent in Middleton and Invitrogen in Milwaukee.
Gov. Jim Doyle has created a new office to oversee the massive distribution of federal economic stimulus money that is expected to flow to the state.
The Office of Recovery and Reinvestment will also look for ways to send the funds quickly to schools, local governments, and companies by speeding through the regulatory process while still keeping environmental and quality standards, Doyle said.
….Gary Wolter, president and chief executive officer of Madison Gas & Electric will be in charge of the new office while maintaining his job with the utility. Al Fish, UW-Madison’s associate vice chancellor for facilities, planning and management, will also join it.
Memorial Union employees submitted a letter to Union administration Thursday afternoon asking that a policy banning non-University of Wisconsin students from being employed as Union building managers be reconsidered.
Seven new directors have been elected to the board of directors for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business association, with headquarters in Madison.
University of Wisconsin-Madison orthopedic surgeon and researcher Dr. Thomas Zdeblick has received millions of dollars in royalty payments from a medical device company for a variety of spinal implants he helped invent, according to an investigation recently made public by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
But a review by The Capital Times finds that the university has no legal right to share in Zdeblick’s windfall. University policy only requires its researchers to patent inventions through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation if their discoveries are funded with federal money.
Every year for the past decade, the biggest customer at the Columbus Antique Mall has been Famous Dave’s barbecue. The franchise regularly bought up bric-a-brac to decorate the restaurants’ walls.
Until last year, that is, when the biggest spender was Universal Studios.
(Jeopardy’s 2008 College Championship and scenes from “Madison” were filmed on the UW-Madison campus and students worked on both productions.)
President Barack Obama must act to address a “crisis of confidence” in the financial markets in order to help pull America out of the recession, UW-Madison Business School Dean Michael Knetter told business executives at an economic forum in Milwaukee today.
Knetter said Obama also must act to restore the publicâ??s faith in the economy, while continued action by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department is needed to prop up banks in order to keep them lending.
The “For Sale” signs haven’t yet gone up, but General Electric could soon be seeking a buyer for an $11 million building in the Old Sauk Trails Business Park in Middleton.
….An outgrowth of UW-Madison research, Lunar Corp. joined GE’s ranks in 2000 when it was purchased for $142 million by GE Healthcare, a subsidiary of General Electric Co.
….Despite the twin pillars of state government and the University of Wisconsin, Madison certainly hasn’t been immune to the unprecedented economic slowdown.
Madison will be host to several Olympic cycling events if Chicago is chosen to host the 2016 summer games, officials announced Friday.
Neil Lerner, director of the Small Business Development Center at UW-Madison’s School of Business, said even if small-business owners aren’t planning to retire soon, outlining a succession plan is a smart thing to do.
Whether the owner is planning to sell just the real estate, or sell the business to a family member or someone outside the family, it’s important to make the necessary preparation, Lerner said. “It’s still good practice to think ahead and plan for that.”
A Sweden-based biotechnology company has signed a license to use human embryonic stem cells discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Cellartis AB said the agreement with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation opens the door to the U.S. market for its stem cell-related products. The company is focused on using the cells and related products in drug discovery and regenerative medicine.
The medical industry has 20 billion reasons to expect cooperation from doctors in marketing its products. That’s how many dollars the industry spends each year in payments and gifts, according to Senate estimates.
The practice should be banned outright, but for now, we’ll settle for full disclosure, which a Senate bill introduced in 2007 by Sens. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, would require.
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo will pay new CEO Carol Bartz at least $19 million in cash and stock during her first year on the job and top it off with an incentive package likely to yield a huge windfall if she can turn around the long-struggling Internet company.
The details of the UW-Madison graduate’s compensation emerged Thursday in a regulatory filing made two days after Yahoo hired the tough-minded technology veteran to replace co-founder Jerry Yang as its chief executive.
The former Lunar Corp., now known as GE Healthcare Lunar, will be closing operations at 726 Heartland Trail in Madison in June and consolidating functions at the GE Healthcare facility located at 3030 Ohmeda Drive in Madison.
John McNamara used to curse a blue streak when the city snowplow truck would leave a big pile at the foot of his east side driveway. But this winter, McNamara is having the last laugh.
In December, McNamara dumped his 1992 Toyota Corolla and signed up for Community Car, the local service that rents wheels by the hour to members.
Ethanol and biodiesel manufacturers have been extremely optimistic about the potential of food crops such as corn and soybeans to produce biofuels, but a new study suggests that the projections they relied on have not been realistic.
The study by University of Wisconsin and University of Minnesota researchers, published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, determined the global yields of such crops have been overestimated by 100 percent to 150 percent.
SAN FRANCISCO â?? Yahoo named technology veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive Tuesday, bringing in a no-nonsense leader known for developing a clear focus â?? something that has eluded the struggling Internet company during a three-year slump.
The decision to lure the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate away from software maker Autodesk ends Yahoo’s two-month search to replace co-founder Jerry Yang, who surrendered the CEO reins after potentially lucrative deals with rivals Microsoft and Google both collapsed.
Wisconsin-reared Carol Bartz, who grew up on a farm near Alma, took over Tuesday as CEO of one of the country’s most famous tech companies, Yahoo Inc.
A 1971 computer science graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bartz brings to the struggling Internet search giant a track record of accomplishment and toughness.
Quoted: Michael Knetter, dean of the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
We have an incredible research university in UW-Madison that’s turning technology into successful businesses and high-paying jobs. We have a dynamic health industry and soaring farm exports. Our manufacturers are finding niche global markets in which to thrive.
The coming year needs to be a turning point for the economy. Above all else, the State Journal editorial board will advocate for smart economic policies that produce good jobs for hardworking people.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The University of Wisconsin-Madison has quietly decided to stop manufacturing its signature aerosol chambers used for researching infectious disease, which were involved in a few dangerous lab accidents nationwide.
The College of Engineering is shutting down the business after an internal audit found it was poorly managed and carried the potential for huge liability costs in the event the chambers failed, exposing researchers to toxic agents.
