Category: Business/Technology

MADISON, Wis. — Growers interested in selling vegetables at Wisconsin farmers markets can learn more about the business at a January workshop hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Wisconsin School for Beginning Market Growers will run Jan. 16 to 18. It costs $275.

The school’s coordinator, John Hendrickson, said demand for fresh, locally grown vegetables has never been greater and many farmers markets are seeking vendors. Community-supported agriculture programs, in which families buy shares of farmers’ harvests, also are growing.

A wealthy financier who says he learned everything he needed to know about making money at the University of Chicago has given its business school a record-breaking $300 million donationâ??and a new name.

The gift from David Booth moves the school closer to competing top programs that have enjoyed greater endowments, but it still lags the leading Harvard Business School’s nearly $3 billion in funds.

Angel investing in Wisconsin will be dented by the global economic crisis, but not obliterated.

That’s the opinion of several investors attending the two-day Early Stage Symposium that finishes up today in Madison. Mentions the University Research Park’s 25th year.

HEC in Paris is increasing its links with US business schools through a partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to develop and teach a real estate programme at HEC. Wisconsin School of Business is one of the leaders in the US in teaching real estate programmes.

Chancellor Biddy Martin spoke to Madison business leaders at a luncheon Monday to candidly address issues of affordability and funding facing the University of Wisconsin in the coming years.

MADISON — UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn â??Biddyâ? Martin declared Monday that the university was a statewide economic driver that could do even more to foster small and big businesses alike during tough times.

Martin called the financial stress facing the state â??unprecedentedâ? but said that cutting the UW too much in the next budget would diminish the universityâ??s stature and harm economic development in the long term.

So you think you have a great idea for a business, but the extent of your plan is a few notes scribbled on the back of a fast-food bag.

Maybe you need someone with experience to guide you.

That’s the goal of a new group called MERLIN Mentors. MERLIN stands for Madison Entrepreneur Resource, Learning and Innovation Network, and it’s issuing a call for both mentors and would-be entrepreneurs.

It took 25 police officers to quell a disturbance and clear out the bar at the Madison Avenue Bar, 624 University Ave., according to police reports.

The initial officers were sent to the bar to assist a woman who was drunk and unconscious.

With the stock market fluctuating daily and many peopleâ??s portfolios shaken, the University of Wisconsin and other nonprofit organizations are concerned whether money will continue to pour in from private donors.

Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp will deliver the keynote address at the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative’s Bioenergy Summit on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus Thursday.

Krupp’s talk, which like the entire conference is free and open to the public, will cover current energy policy, as well as innovative ways to encourage companies to adopt environmentally conscious businesses practices.

The city has busted the Stadium Bar, the largest outdoor beer garden near Camp Randall Stadium, for staying open too late and operating its beer garden during more than just Badger football game days.

The Madison Plan Commission Monday night voted to hold a public hearing in December on the popular sports bar, at 1419 Monroe St., to assess its outdoor operations.

UW-Madison officials announced Monday they were reversing a decision to change the schedules of second-shift custodians after getting complaints from the workers.

The city of Madison has been trying to boost redevelopment of the South Park Street corridor for years, including pumping more than $10 million into the blighted Villager Mall. Now, a Chicago-based real estate developer is eyeing the former Bancroft Dairy site on the corner of Fish Hatchery Road and Park Street, with thoughts of a hotel to serve visitors to the UW-Madison campus and nearby hospitals.

The national credit squeeze is closely tied to local housing markets, said Eric Rosengren, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

“I would say that in many parts of the country the fact that housing prices have gone down and real estate is softening has affected small banks as well as large banks,” he said in a phone interview.

Rosengren, who earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in economics at UW-Madison, was in Madison Thursday to speak to students.

Investor aversion to risk threatens to deepen the nation’s credit crunch and slow the economy, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said Thursday.

Eric Rosengren said a “liquidity lock” in key credit markets “compounds problems created by a traditional credit crunch” by impeding even short-term financing for the most creditworthy firms.

“If it were to persist, this unwillingness to take credit risk, or to lend money other than overnight, could constrain creditworthy borrowers from undertaking worthwhile projects — and thus have implications for economic growth,” Mr. Rosengren said in a speech Thursday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Agriculture is one of the biggest components of Wisconsin’s economy. From its farmers to the researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the state is a national leader. But this has always been an “unsung story,” said Roger Cliff, chief administrative officer at the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, a trade organization representing more than 20,000 state farmers.

Congress whiffs on a proposed financial bail out plan, and Wall Street responds with a plummeting market.

A panel of UW-Madison business experts believe the developments should not lead to panic.

The panel of experts used terms such as “historic,” for what’s going on in our economy at the moment. And during more than an hour forum for alumni and students at the UW School of Business, “recession,” not “depression,” was as far as any of the experts would go, as they looked down our economic road.

Recently they met to try and explain the current state of our economy and more importantly where we go from here.

It was a busy day on Wall Street.

The House rejected a $700 billion bailout plan, stocks fell about 770 points and everyone is left wondering what’s next?

A panel of UW experts came together to try and explain what all this talk of financial crisis means to you.

One expert says, ” There were serious discussions starting back in 2002 about whether or not this was a bubble.”

Madison, Wis. – Relentless innovation is considered by many business gurus to be America’s only remaining edge in a global marketplace marked by labor arbitrage and the competitive threats posed by exploding economies in China and elsewhere.

While some progress is being made on the innovation front, too many U.S. companies still are underperforming when it comes to driving the type of sustained innovation needed to meet this competitive threat, according to Tom Koulopoulos, an internationally recognized management consultant and author of the forthcoming book The Innovation Zone.

Peak Ridge Capital has launched what it said is the first private equity fund to focus exclusively on agricultural and clean technologies in Wisconsin.

“The AgTech Fund is poised to be one of the nation’s largest private equity funds focusing exclusively on agricultural technologies,” Peak Ridge President Jason Smith said in a statement.

(The fund’s board of advisers includes Dr. Molly Jahn, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at UW-Madison and Hector DeLuca, famed UW-Madison Steenbock Research Professor)

Milwaukee, Wis. – The professionals of Ernst & Young, LLP, together with the Ernst & Young Foundation, have announced a donation of $840,000 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The donation will be used to create a new Accounting Student Computer Lab in the School of Business and complete the funding of the Ernst & Young endowed chair in the Accounting department.

University Book Store is expanding into the Milwaukee area.

The venerable 114-year-old institution (founded in 1894) will open its newest store in the Brookfield Square Mall on Moorland Road in Brookfield on Oct. 1, the third city and sixth location for the store.