Higher costs at the hospital If you think hospital bills are rising, you’re right.
Figures from the Wisconsin Hospital Association show that rates have risen sharply at Madison-area hospitals, between 5.8 and 9.9 percent this year, while the state average was a 5.8 percent jump for this year and the same in 2005.
And further health insurance cost increases probably aren’t far behind.
The mayors of Milwaukee and Madison – Tom Barrett and Dave Cieslewicz – got together for their second joint speaking engagement last week to emphasize the benefits of collaboration. They call it the M2 Collaborative.
We’re glad they’re talking. But if the Tom and Dave Show is to be something more than that, the two mayors need to set some concrete, measurable goals.
With two months to go in the Wisconsin race for governor, a bit of meat is being added to the generalizations of the two candidates on job creation.
Both major party candidates for governor are keenly aware that in this hotly contested race, the oft-used political cliche – “It’s the economy, stupid” – was never more on target.
So much so that the debate tonight in Waukesha between Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican challenger Mark Green will focus exclusively on the economy and taxes.
Hot-button social issues, like stem cell research and abortion, will have to wait. A second debate, set for Oct. 20 in La Crosse, will focus on quality of life issues.
We’re glad to see the rebound of manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin, but were troubled that many employers are still having difficulty filling these high-paying positions.
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a research and policy center based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reports that Wisconsin’s economy, private-sector job growth, wages and personal income are all on the rise.
Better highways and high-speed rail, more university research dollars and stronger ties between Milwaukee and Madison are needed to build an economic dynamo in southern Wisconsin that competes with other regions throughout the world, political and business leaders said Monday.
If there were a Dolly Levi of the business world, it might be Joan Gillman. Levi was the heroine of Thornton Wilder’s novel, “The Matchmaker,” later recast as the musical and movie, “Hello, Dolly.”
Ana Garic-Stankovic is far from the stereotype of an unskilled worker who sneaks illegally across the border into the United States.
A researcher at UW-Madison’s department of nutritional sciences, she came here legally from Macedonia, and she and her husband overcame several hurdles to stay and become U.S. citizens.
Two announcements this week bode well for the Dane County and Wisconsin biotech communities.
One is the news that an Illinois life sciences company will be moving to Madison. The other is that a fledgling venture capital fund ââ?¬â?? backed by
Boston financiers – will be investing in startup life sciences and information technology companies in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states.
Is Dane County really becoming nationally known as a hotbed for biotechnology, with the potential to generate jobs and income for Wisconsin as well as medical advancements for mankind?
Are the millions of dollars of state investment in biological sciences at UW-Madison really paying off?
Is there really economic development potential in a Madison-to-Milwaukee-to-Chicago triangle of regional cooperation?
Wisconsin policymakers should take note: This week produced more evidence that the answers to those three questions are yes, yes and yes.
The UW System Board of Regents voted Aug. 18 to take away all university funds from companies ââ?¬Å?that support or abet acts of genocideââ?¬Â in Sudan, in response to the three-and-a-half-year conflict between Arab and African Muslims in Darfur.
People often take pride in their hometown or place of residence, and two University of Wisconsin students decided to take advantage of that fact two years ago.
We’re finally luring more venture capital for startup businesses and entrepreneurs. Our large manufacturing base, for the most part, is changing with the times and embracing technology.
Wisconsin also has a blossoming bio-science sector, thanks in large part to dynamic research at UW- Madison, which needs stronger support from state leaders.
Think of Milwaukee as a mining town.
Hard to imagine, until you know that the pay dirt isn’t silver or gold – it’s brain power. And that the mine is the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
When it comes to ailing dogs and cats, Oregon Veterinary Clinic can handle just about anything, from surgical repair of cruciate ligaments to cancer treatment. But there are some cases that prompt the clinic to refer clients to specialists.
Co-owner Dr. Jim Stevenson said the clinic sometimes refers clients to the UW School of Veterinary Medicine or to traveling specialists, but the preference is Veterinary Specialty Options (VSO) of Madison.
….Dr. Dave Edinger started the business in 1999 as Surgical Options, working as a traveling specialist after he completed his residency at UW.
A strange lot, these new-style Republicans who run the Wisconsin Legislature.
Last week when Rob Carpick, one of the UW-Madison’s stars who has brought more than $3.4 million in research grants to the university, announced he was leaving because of the state’s refusal to offer health insurance for his domestic partner, the co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, Rep. Dean Kaufert, proclaimed there is nothing to worry about.
…this breed of Wisconsin legislator has never been able to come to grips with just how much of an economic engine the University of Wisconsin is for our state.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=489479
Quoted: Laura Dresser of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at UW-Madison.
Thirty years ago, Nick Seay moved here – to a city he had never seen – and joined a handful of patent lawyers working in this relatively small university town.
Today, Seay is one of more than 80 registered patent lawyers in Madison and is a key player in the commercialization of embryonic stem cells, one of the most cutting-edge scientific technologies on the globe.
It was Seay who wrote the potentially lucrative patents that were filed after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist James Thomson in 1998 became the first person to isolate human embryonic stem cells.
The UW-Madison School of Business will hold its semi-annual Economic Outlook on Sept. 15 at the Fluno Center.
The event brings in leading economists to speak on topics such as interest rates, oil prices, federal budget deficits and the relative strength of the dollar, helping business leaders and owners translate economic trends into competitive intelligence.
Confidence – it’s one of the many things that Jame Winn says she gained by being in UW Hospital School at Work (SAW) program.
SAW is designed to help employees working in entry-level positions at UW Hospital develop skills to further their healthcare careers.
It is one of the programs offered through UW Hospital’s Academy, which provides employees with training in leadership, management and career and personal development.
When you think about economic development, a medical school is probably not the first thing that crosses the mind. But consider the lucrative economic spinoff in Dane County from the cutting-edge research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s medical school.
A Dane County Judge will likely decide in late October whether a Regent Street bicycle shop owner illegally backed out of an agreement to sell a building for a primate cruelty exhibition center.
Primorigen Biosciences LLC, a fledgling Madison-based company that is developing laboratory tools for analysis of cellular reprogramming and differentiation, has raised $2.45 million in funding, the Wisconsin Technology Network reported.
(The company is located in the MG&E Innovation Center in University Research Park.)
It’s possible “The Madison Kid” movie may be shot somewhere other than Madison. Adding insult, it is likely to be renamed.
The script, optioned by Beacon Pictures, tells the story of Phil Hellmuth Jr., the Madison native turned international poker star. The new name may be “Poker Brat,” based on Hellmuth’s well-known moniker. (He told me earlier this year that Madison Kid is his “second-favorite nickname after Poker Brat.”)
In 1970, the UW chancellor informed the University Book Store that its lease would not be renewed. The library wanted the space for its expansion.
The Memorial Library had initially been built around the store in the 1950s without infringing on the bookstore’s space.
The high-tech and biotech firms being developed around the University of Wisconsin-Madison “aren’t enough to overwhelm the larger economy that was already in place and was growing more slowly,” agreed William A. Testa, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which serves most of Wisconsin.
Primorigen Biosciences LLC, a Madison biotech start-up company, has raised $2.45 million in a first round of financing.
Primorigen’s president is Chuck Oehler, who also held executive positions at Promega and other biotech firms, and was president and consulting executive director of the Wisconsin Biotechnology Association during a period of rapid growth.
His firm, the Oehler Group, has helped start-ups and other companies raise about $30 million, according to his biography on the Web site for the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school, where he serves on the entrepreneurship program’s advisory board.
Dear Editor: I am writing to commend letter writer Matthew McNamara for his thoughtful comments regarding the efforts by many to protect the UW Arboretum from for-profit development.
In his letter, he raises several questions and makes a strong appeal that the drive to preserve the UW Arboretum rely on “credible arguments based on facts.” I’d like to assure him that this is exactly how the “Protect the Arboretum” campaign is proceeding.
The drums pounding in any open field the city has to offer, the sound of horns bouncing off downtown buildings, buses clogging traffic around Camp Randall Stadium.
Store those sights and sounds in your head, because Drum Corps International’s World Championships won’t be back for a while. This week, DCI announced it was moving its permanent headquarters to Indianapolis and taking the championships with it beginning in 2008.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students could lose control over Union South if they don’t approve a referendum this fall to rebuild it, Wisconsin Union officials said.
A veteran researcher and administrator will serve as interim director for the planned $150 million Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, UW-Madison announced Tuesday.
As interim director, Marsha Mailick Seltzer will play a key role in developing the concept for the research institutes the university hopes will be world-class. She is currently the director of UW-Madison’s Waisman Center and a scholar of developmental disabilities.
A new report from a UW-Madison think tank warns that most residents in southern Wisconsin will never earn four-year college degrees and says economic development efforts must reflect that reality.
The report from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) released Wednesday found that in Dane County over 59 percent of the population does not have a four-year degree. That number increases to 84 percent for the other 11 counties of southwestern and south central Wisconsin included in the report.
If you think the Madison area is brimming with Ph.D.’s and multidegreed college graduates, think again.
A report released Wednesday says the majority of Dane County’s population – more than 59 percent – does not have a four-year college degree, nor does 84 percent of southwest and south-central Wisconsin.
…if you’re unhappy about the direction of Big Ten football – specifically, the proliferation of night games – there’s only one person to blame.
Blame Woody Hayes. Or Jim Delany.
NimbleGen Systems, a Madison biotech company with a new way of making gene chips, has hired a chief financial officer with some Wall Street experience and a Harvard MBA.
The move is viewed as a prelude to filing an application – possibly by the end of the year – to trade NimbleGen’s shares on the stock market. Nimblegen is a UW-Madison spinoff company.
Subscribers to Charter Digital Cable now have video on demand access to UW-Madison programming on ResearchChannel.
The free service, which began July 1, enables Charter digital customers to see UW-Madison programming that includes lectures, forums, research reports and other research programs at any time.
The Madison Police Department and the Dane County Tavern League are getting parts of their wish lists answered in the city’s response to a rise in robberies.
In a joint press conference held Thursday by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Police Chief Noble Wray, the recent rise in crime was blamed on too many bars, too many drunks and too few cops.
A man in New York once drew attention and job bites by walking the sidewalks wearing a sandwich board with his resume on it.
His example highlights the powers of vision and promotion — traits the Collaboration Council is harnessing to draw companies and good-paying jobs to south-central Wisconsin.
In just a few months, the council has raised more than $1 million from dozens of private businesses to help create a regional economic development corporation.
Drums will be beating and cash registers will be ringing in Madison next week.
About 35,000 people are expected to hit town for the 2006 Drum Corps International World Championships Tuesday through Saturday, according to the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau. That will result in an estimated $3.3 million in direct spending in the area.
How Madison manages Halloween is a big deal.
Drawing crowds of 75,000 or more to State Street on the final weekend of October, Halloween partying is big business packing Madison area hotels, restaurants and taverns to capacity and big fun for the most part.
But the city has never quite gotten a handle on the underside of the festivities: deadly drunkenness, violence and crowd control nightmares. As a result, the cost of policing the party has risen to over $600,000 annually.
A lot of Madisonians would be just as happy if the party was canceled. But that’s not going to happen…
While many campers this summer are tying square knots, paddling canoes or weaving friendship bracelets, a growing number are instead drawing up business plans and generating personal budgets. At entrepreneur and finance camps from coast to coast, business is open.
Three former executives of the now-defunct Bone Care International are back in the biotech business, hoping to recreate the small Middleton pharmaceutical company’s success.
Marketing professors at the UW-Madison School of Business have been racking up national honors.
As of this fall, four of the faculty members will serve on the editorial review board for the Journal of Marketing, the leading scholarly journal in the field. Only a handful of marketing programs in the country will have as many representatives on the board.
Sixteen elected leaders from Madison and Dane County are asking American Transmission Co. to consider using new technology to boost power on existing high-voltage lines instead of building controversial new lines across the southern half of the county.
….ATC has proposed three routes for a 345-kilovolt line, the north route along the Beltline, the central route through Fitchburg and Verona and the southern route through towns from Christiana to Montrose.
Vitamin D is poised to strike again for Madison.
Harry Steenbock’s groundbreaking discoveries at UW-Madison early last century laid a foundation that led to vitamin D becoming by far the biggest moneymaker for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
WAUSAU – After two decades of steadily declining numbers of dairy cows in America’s Dairyland, the trend is slowly reversing itself, providing new optimism that an embattled industry in Wisconsin is on the rebound, farm experts say.
UW-Madison dairy economist Robert Cropp is quoted.
As more Wisconsin companies do business around the world, they’re also finding themselves becoming global employers. Some businesses have begun to tap into the pool of Chinese students who come to train as engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
A Santa Monica-based taxpayer rights group launched a formal challenge Tuesday to three patents that it contends have had a chilling effect on embryonic stem cell research.
The move came on the day the U.S. Senate approved a bill that would expand federal funding for such research, sending it to President Bush, who has promised a veto.
Two public interest advocacy groups Tuesday petitioned the federal government to revoke three University of Wisconsin patents they claim are driving scientists overseas and could hinder California’s $3 billion stem-cell research institute.
Three patents held by a Wisconsin alumni group may throw a bigger roadblock into stem cell research in the United States than federal funding restrictions, a leading stem cell scientist said Tuesday.
MADISON ââ?¬â?? One of the biggest challenges facing Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s changing economy is turning out entrepreneurs and managers to run emerging companies.
One of Madison’s high-tech success stories continues to power ahead.
TomoTherapy Inc. today unveiled its new 66,000 square-foot operations center at 1209 Deming Way, across from the company’s headquarters in the Old Sauk Trails Office Park.
TomoTherapy is radiating into a larger part of the Far West Side.
The Madison company, which makes specialized radiation machines for treating cancer, moved its manufacturing operation Thursday into a new building at 1209 Deming Way, across the street from the company’s headquarters in the Old Sauk Trails Office Park.
Madison’s business community is fed up with the city’s “utopian” rules – some bitterly saying government is hurting, even killing them.
But despite all of the complaints, the city’s economy is crackling, among the nation’s best in some ways, Wisconsin State Journal research shows.
For generations, Madison has been a place where life is good.
Plenty of good jobs with government and UW-Madison as the solid, steady anchors. Good schools, chock-full of middle-class, college-bound students. Easy to find a nice, affordable place to live.
That was then.
This is now: State government shedding jobs. Madison businesses moving to the suburbs. Companies facing business competition from Austin, Texas, to Shanghai. More families short on cash and stuck in low-paying jobs. Growing numbers of trophy homes priced exclusively for the rich. And a feeling among business people that Madison’s city leaders are out to get them.
In 1967, Judy Haag took an entry-level state job and started living the Dane County dream of government service. Decades later, she helped the state automate and eliminate the very clerk’s job she was first hired to fill – and some 80 more just like it.
Haag’s nearly 40-year career shows both the opportunity that government jobs can offer and the way that those jobs – the core of this region’s economy – are no longer the force they once were.
The usual UW bashers in the state Legislature certainly provide some good copy for this newspaper and others.
The story line typically goes like this: Outraged lawmaker castigates state university again for (fill in the blank – insufficient patriotism, wasteful spending, mismanagement or wildly unconventional thought).
The raging lawmaker gets to grab headlines and score cheap political points. The University of Wisconsin System suffers an excessive spanking and tries to strike back.
All the while, the reputation of the entire state of Wisconsin is trashed.
The company also donates to various causes. Flesch officials were inspired by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to create the Gordon Flesch Foundation, which gave $100,000 to New York City police officers and firefighters. The foundation, which makes donations of about $100,000 a year, also helped Hurricane Katrina victims and contributes to local charities, including Habitat for Humanity and UW- Madison.
A Michigan company that is developing a psoriasis treatment based on licensed technology developed by UW-Madison Professor Hector DeLuca announced that it won’t be going public due to the current weak stock market conditions.
Users of a popular lakeside parking lot at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will see a significant price increase come this fall.
