This year, about 1,000 low-income workers – primarily in Milwaukee and Madison – will receive tax preparation assistance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center on Business and Poverty. John Hoffmire, the director of the center, was interviewed via e-mail by the Journal Sentinel’s Mark Maley.
A NUMBER of readers have been in touch wondering about the huge pile of dirt and other strange configurations on the Odana Hills golf course that are easily visible while driving by the course on the Beltline.
….What is being constructed at Odana, underground between the sixth and eighth holes, is a large storm water infiltration facility in the Lake Wingra watershed.
It’s part of a deal struck among the city, state and Madison Gas & Electric that includes the new MGE West Campus co-generation plant, which will draw water from Lake Mendota. In return, MGE is providing the facility under Odana, which will filter storm water retained in the large Odana pond to the left of the 15th fairway and then pump the clean water into the soil, where it will infiltrate to the water table, eventually making its way toward Lake Wingra.
A Michigan company that is developing a psoriasis treatment based on licensed technology developed by UW-Madison Professor Hector DeLuca has filed for an initial public offering of stock.
….DeLuca, chairman of the UW Department of Biochemistry, is the world’s leading expert on the metabolism and mechanism of vitamin D with more than 150 active patents in the U.S. and more than 1,200 patents outside the U.S.
So, I say “Madison,” and your first thought is . . .
Romantic? Maybe: USA Weekend calls it a top romantic destination, for some reason.
Corrupt? Sure, that’s top-of-mind. Weedstock? Legendary for puffery, to be sure.
But entrepreneurial? The People’s Republic of Madison, entrepreneurial?
Yes, argue some people close to Wisconsin’s growing biotech industry: The reason research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has led to a slew of new companies is that the university and the community are congenial to entrepreneurs. The rest of Wisconsin can take a lesson from that.
Entrepreneurial? The People’s Republic of Madison, entrepreneurial?
Yes, argue some people close to Wisconsin’s growing biotech industry: The reason research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has led to a slew of new companies is that the university and the community are congenial to entrepreneurs. The rest of Wisconsin can take a lesson from that.
“Our policies,” says Phil Sobocinski, assistant director of the UW Office of Corporate Relations, “are all entrepreneur-friendly.”
The demand for new MBAs is expected to be at the highest level since the Internet bubble burst a half-decade ago, according to college career counselors and recruiters.
But UW-Madison Business School Dean Michael Knetter said talk of fiscal misery might be overwrought.
Our savings, he said, are tied up in homes and other assets that are increasing in value.
The Commerce Department focused on cash flow, Knetter said. “Using that method, you look at how much income is earned in a year and how much is not spent,” he said. “But it’s not the whole story.”
About 1,000 low-income workers in Wisconsin will get free help filling out their tax returns along with a dose of financial education to help stretch their paychecks even further, thanks to the UW-Madison Center on Business and Poverty.
Wisconsinââ?¬â?¢s academic and commercial biotech community plans to pull out the stops for BIO 2006, which will run from April 9-12 in Chicago. The budget to showcase the Badger Stateââ?¬â?¢s biotechnology prowess has risen to nearly $270,000 this year ââ?¬â?? nearly three times what was spent last year at BIO 2005 in Philadelphia.
ââ?¬Å?This is the perfect opportunity to tell our story and make connections,ââ?¬Â said Charlie Hoslet, managing director of the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations.
Wisconsin must focus on continued modernization of its manufacturing and agricultural industries, while also working to develop emerging industries, such as bio-medical research, to keep the state’s economy competitive, Gov. Jim Doyle said at a conference Thursday.
Those emerging industries that need continued investment include stem cell research, said Doyle, speaking to about 300 economic development officials and business people at the Governor’s Conference on Economic Development. The conference, organized by the Wisconsin Economic Development Association, met at Madison’s Monona Terrace convention center.
….Many independent businesses along this stretch have moved or closed to make way for a new development by The Mullins Group, which owns much of the property. Others will soon relocate. They include Etes Vous Prets coffee at 518 Highland Ave. this spring and, eventually, Lulu’s restaurant, which has been at 2524 University Ave. for over 21 years.
The University of Wisconsin administration is expected to cancel the e-Projects in Community Service program, a service-learning course offered at UW, after the end of this semester.
The program has seen its numbers steadily rise since its inception in fall of 2000, as 116 out of 120 spots have been filled for this semester.
The state’s troubled computer systems continue to be a source of debate and worry, as officials call for audits, hear testimony and bring in an outside overseer for the awarding of yet another software contract.
The leaders of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee have called for an overall audit on the state’s information technology system contracts, after repeated expensive systems failures.
The Republican legislators who find great sport in bashing the University of Wisconsin ought to take a look at a column in this month’s Inc. magazine, one of the nation’s leading business journals.
The Steve Nashes, Ron Kreibichs and Robert Cowleses of the world might be interested in knowing that the UW does a remarkable job translating its research and patents into business development and job creation, something that’s usually near and dear to a Republican’s heart. But they’d rather punish the school over social and personnel policies that don’t fit their own prejudices.
MILWAUKEE (AP) – Sheldon B. Lubar, founder and chairman of the Milwaukee-based investment company Lubar & Co., says he is donating $10 million to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee business school.
The money will be used to fund new professorships and provide scholarships to business students as the university seeks to play a greater role in the regional economy.
Did the Irish read the Wisconsin Blue Ribbon Report on Jobs for the 21st Century, published back in 1997?
The strategic blueprint laid out almost a decade ago sounds like a carbon copy of the strategy that has propelled Ireland to the top of the prosperity pyramid in Europe.
The Irish have been focused. They have beefed up investments in universities. We have been going the other way, except for the BioStar initiative at UW-Madison.
THE DAY before Jennifer Connor was officially going to enter the mustard business, her partner put her in a pickle.
At the time – 2004 – Connor was in Chicago, back from Hollywood, looking to buy a mustard line named for a longtime Madison retail clothier.
….Connor was a UW-Madison freshman eating a cheeseburger at Stillwater’s on State Street when she had her first heavenly bite of Rendall’s mustard. Talking to Connor, you soon learn she does not suffer from an enthusiasm deficit – especially when it comes to Rendall’s mustard.
Net farm income in 2005 in Wisconsin was an estimated $1.6 billion, after hitting a record $1.9 billion in 2004, when prices were stronger for nearly all farm products, according to the annual Status of Wisconsin Agriculture report from the UW-Madison College of Agricultural Life Sciences.
Stratatech, a Madison company that’s been developing skin tissue to heal wounds, will expand its research into another arena with the help of a new federal grant.
Madison-based Stratatech Corp. has received a new federal grant that enables it to expand into cancer research.
Stratatech has received several federal grants for its work in developing human skin substitutes for burn victims and chronic wounds such as diabetic and pressure ulcers.
….Stratatech, a UW-Madison spin-off established in 2000, has 27 employees at its offices in the MGE Innovation Center in University Research Park.
How do you stop a herd of rampaging elephants?
A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison business students recently learned that the answer lies in learning to think from a different point of view.
A group of 10 master’s of business administration students visited the impoverished African nation of Malawi in early January. The journey was one of several trips abroad the MBA program has been adding in an effort to give their students a more worldly outlook.
Starting a business is a big risk, said UW-Madison finance professor Jim Seward, and small businesses don’t have access to the range of stocks, bonds and lending that larger companies can use.
“A lot of the success of the American economy is making sure that funds flow to those sorts of businesses so that they get a chance to commercialize their discoveries,” said Seward, director of the Nicholas Center for Applied Corporate Finance. “It’s a great thing.”
Mithridion Inc., a start-up pharmaceutical firm near Madison, announced Wednesday that it scored a $1.6 million investment to help develop drugs that stop or slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
The firm was founded in 2004 and grew out of research on mice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Pharmacy. It will use the funds to expand its laboratories, hire scientists and develop Alzheimer’s-inhibiting drugs. Its investors are Rosetta Partners LLC, a private equity consortium in suburban Chicago, and Leazer’s Wisconsin Investment Partners.
If current trends continue, by 2010 more than 90% of the world’s scientists and engineers will live in Asia, warns the Business Roundtable, which represents the nation’s leading companies. Failing to reverse that trend will result in a ââ?¬Å?slow witheringââ?¬Â of U.S. economic might, the group warns. Strong stuff. And that’s just the beginning of the complaints from the business community.
A Fitchburg company that aims to develop drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease today announced it has attracted funding that it will use to establish labs, hire scientists and develop drug candidates.
Mithridion Inc. said it has received the first portion of an anticipated $1.6 million in angel funding, with the remainder expected over the next few months.
….Mithridion’s technology was developed at the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy by Jeffrey A. Johnson, an associate professor, and Thor D. Stein, a researcher.
The London-based Financial Times has ranked UW-Madison’s MBA program the 51st best in the U.S., after it was unranked last year.
The Financial Times’ ranking methodology includes data provided by the school and a survey of students enrolled in the program from 2000-2002 and is based on alumni career development and salary purchasing power, diversity and research capabilities
The UW MBA program has been changed considerably in the three plus years since the class surveyed for this ranking graduated. The new specialized MBA program prepares students to launch careers in highly focused areas.
Dear Editor: A recent article in The Capital Times (Jan. 16) highlights important links between Mexico and the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and other states. Your readers may like to know what their university is doing to maximize the benefits of these links….
Kenneth H. Shapiro
Associate dean and professor
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
UW-Madison
Wisconsin earned a gold star in the latest rankings from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, landing on its honor roll after being graded in 68 measures of economic vitality and quality of life.
Economist David J. Ward aid the investment measures should improve as networks of angel investors and venture capitalists expand. He also said the state is getting better in transferring ideas from the university laboratory to businesses, where the rankings placed the state 36th.
Think of Madison’s State Street. Or Monroe Street. Or Willy Street. A distinct character comes to mind in a split second.
Now think of Regent Street, another renowned Madison thoroughfare – the stretch bracketed by Camp Randall and the Kohl Center and visited by tens of thousands of Badger fans every year.
Public universities in the United States may be at a turning point, write Katharine C. Lyall and Kathleen R. Sell in The True Genius of America at Risk: Are We Losing Our Public Universities to De Facto Privatization? (Praeger). The new book comes at a time that many leading public universities are conducting billion-dollar fund raising campaigns while finding it difficult to match their states� ambitions with legislative appropriations.
Opponents of legislation that would let phone companies avoid local franchising when they offer TV services in Wisconsin gathered today to bring attention to the issue.
Bills that would let phone companies franchise on a state or federal level have been introduced in Congress and several states, but not yet in Wisconsin, where time is running out on the 2006 legislative session, which ends in March.
However, “We’re expecting one,” said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications who advises many communities in their dealings with cable companies.
The relationship between doctors and medical suppliers is often tainted by money, said ethicists from around the region.
A New York Times report this week noted that a University of Wisconsin surgeon received $400,000 per year for consulting with a medical device company.
Also this week, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article pointing to health industry practices that create conflicts of interest. The authors called for more stringent regulation of small gifts, drug samples, and payments for speeches, research contracts, and attending seminars.
Norman Fost, a UW-Madison professor of bioethics, said the case highlighted in the New York Times might make one think such an arrangement is unusual.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison panel told a high-profile back surgeon in 1998 to drastically scale back a $400,000-per-year consulting arrangement with a medical device designer, a Graduate School official said.
But the arrangement continued for about six years before the panel told him in 2004 to make the change.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Medtronic, a Minnesota company that makes spinal implant equipment, had an arrangement with Dr. Thomas Zdeblick, chairman of the department of orthopedics at UW Hospital. The 10-year deal included $400,000 in pay for two days of consulting work every three months, the Times reported.
A first-ever effort to make electricity from hydrogen is generating power in Madison, using a sophisticated chemical process with a little help from a four-cylinder Ford engine.
The renewable energy system, developed by Virent Energy Systems, a Madison-based energy start-up, began sending electricity to the power grid in late December, said Virent Chief Executive Eric Apfelbach.
Virent is a start-up firm founded by Randy Cortright after he and other scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison invented a chemical process for converting the sugar contained in corn plants into hydrogen.
Wisconsin boasts the fourth most equal distribution of family income in the country, but it’s still seeing wider disparity between the rich and the poor – and the middle, according to research released Thursday.
The wealthiest fifth of Wisconsin families had a 48.2% income boost in the last two decades, compared with a 14.3% increase for the poorest fifth and a 23.4% raise for the middle, according to a report from the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The gap between rich and poor in Wisconsin is widening while income growth for all state residents continues to lag the rest of the nation.
A report released today by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families showed that real incomes for the upper fifth of families in the state have grown 48 percent to $110,653 since the early 1980s. That compares to a 59 percent increase nationally over the same 20-year period.
But at the other end of the spectrum, the bottom fifth of Wisconsin families experienced just a 14 percent income growth over the past two decades. That compares to a 19 percent increase nationally.
….The Center on Wisconsin Strategy is a research and policy institute based at UW-Madison dedicated to improving economic performance and living standards in the state.
Wisconsin is one of five emerging biotech hot spots to be detailed today by e-mail newsletter FierceBiotech, according to a Forbes.com story Tuesday.
A federal grand jury indicted a Doyle administration employee Tuesday on two felony counts for her role in awarding a travel contract to a company whose executives donated $20,000 to the governor, saying she wanted to “cause political advantage for her supervisors.”
The indictment alleges Georgia Thompson, who was hired in the previous Republican administration and serves as chief of the Department of Administration’s procurement bureau, was also trying to help her own job security.
But the indictment does not mention anyone else, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office cautioned in a release that the indictment applies only to Thompson and does not allege wrongdoing by any others.
MADISON – Wisconsin’s second-largest newspaper is letting readers help decide what to put on the front page.
Growth in high-tech exports is happening faster in Wisconsin than in other Midwestern states, a report tracking the state’s economic progress says.
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Of Wisconsin’s $12.7 billion in total exports in 2004, about $2.6 billion, or nearly 21%, were high-tech products and services, according to the report “Business, Finance & Entrepreneurship in Wisconsin: Shaping the New Wisconsin Economy
MADISON ââ?¬â?? The Wisconsin biotechnology and medical device industry, which already produces $7 billion in annual sales, is poised to grow in 2006.
And by 2015, it could be a $10 billion industry in the state, top industry and government officials have predicted.
ââ?¬Å?We have the critical mass to get serious about this sector of our economy,ââ?¬Â Jim Leonhart, a biotech executive said Tuesday at a Wisconsin Innovation Network luncheon.
Practically every big U.S. city and most states would love to become the next hot biotech cluster. Having the cachet of a biotech haven helps attract bright scientists, new startups and, eventually, more tax revenue.
But amid the competition for biotech companies, some locations offer much better incentives than others. Thus, e-mail newsletter FierceBiotech is putting out a list of five emerging hot spots for biotech, to be published in full on Wednesday. The winners are, in alphabetical order: California, Maryland and its I-270 tech corridor, New Jersey, Singapore and Wisconsin.
Wisconsin makes the list based in part on a $375 million research facility the state is building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The state is also very aggressive in attracting biotech and medical device companies.
Wisconsin’s national rank for venture capital investment – a common yardstick for entrepreneurialism and economic innovation in a regional economy – dropped to 35th last year from 26th in 2004, according to a survey released Monday.
The endowments of U.S. colleges and universities earned decent returns in 2005, although most did not match the level of success they had in 2004.
Higher-education endowments earned an average 9.3 percent in the 2005 fiscal year, compared with the average 15.1 percent posted in the 2004 fiscal year, which ended on June 30 for most institutions.
Rachel Chizek, a 21-year-old biochemistry major at Lakeland College, wants to work with DNA when she graduates in 2007, but is worried she’ll have to leave Wisconsin to do that.
But according to Michael Morgan, Wisconsin secretary of revenue, the state aims to create new jobs in the biotechnological field so future graduates such as Chizek won’t have to leave the state to work in their field.
Dane County residents will be healthier if the air is cleaner, so local forces are working to reduce bad air with help from the University of Wisconsin.
The Dane County Clean Air Coalition has received a $450,000 Wisconsin Partnership Fund grant from the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to prevent health risks caused by ground-level ozone, fine particles and toxic air pollutants.
While riding down a rural Irish lane so narrow that two cars could barely pass – much less avoid the wandering sheep – Gov. Jim Doyle mused out loud last week about the contrast between the bumpy road and the growing technology center that lay at its end.
Back in Wisconsin, Doyle said, most argue that the state must build expensive highways to lure factories and research facilities.
Richard Florida, the best-selling author, consultant and professor at Geaorge Mason University submits to a Q & A interview in which he says: “We need to massively, massively invest in our universities and colleges. For every University of Wisconsin, there is a state that doesn’t have one.” Florida says Madison is a “beacon,” partly because of the university.
UW’s Business School will see the first graduates of its new specialized MBA program go into the job market in 2006, its first chance to see how the new program works for employers and graduates.
“It is our expectation that these men and women will be extremely attractive candidates for jobs in their chosen field,” Michael Knetter said.
The specialty MBA program allows students to choose from among more than a dozen career specialties before starting the program.
The line to return textbooks snaked up the steps of University Book Store and into the lobby. People who wanted to buy books had to fight their way through the crowds.
“I kinda like the fact it’s crazy crowded,” University of Wisconsin-Madison sophomore Adam Markoff, from Northbrook, Ill., said Monday. “I might run into someone I know.”
Students have returned to campus and classes begin today. The mob scene at the bookstore, expected to continue all week, demonstrates the continued allure of buying and selling textbooks in person.
Gov. Jim Doyle says he will propose new steps to maintain Wisconsin’s status as a leader in embryonic stem cell research during his State of the State speech (tonight). In an interview (yesterday), Doyle said he aims to have Wisconsin capture 10 percent of the stem cell research market by 2015. By then, Doyle estimates, the industry will be worth $10 billion nationwide and will employ 100,000 people.
To get to that target, Doyle said he will call for the Department of Commerce to dedicate $5 million to find, fund and recruit companies that find practical applications for stem cell research, such as Cellular Dynamics, the Madison-based company established by stem cell pioneer and UW-Madison researcher James Thomson.
For years, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has existed in the shadow of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Marquette University. But under the leadership of chancellor Carlos Santiago, UWM is making strides to step to the forefront of Wisconsin universities, which is a positive development for the Milwaukee-area business community.
Madison is giving new meaning to “gene pool,” as a small but growing number of companies in the molecular diagnostic field are springing up around the university and attracting the attention of venture capitalists.
MADISON, Wis. — Over 320 movers and shakers from Madison’s business community came together at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center on Monday, Jan. 9 to recognize the recipients of this yearââ?¬â?¢s Best of Madison Business Awards, presented by Madison Magazine.
Honorees for 2006 included the University of Wisconsin Athletic Department (represented by Vince Sweeney, Senior Associate Athletic Director).
The gala also raises money for The Brian D. Howell Science and Communications Scholarship Fund which provides financial support for a college-level internship designed to encourage University of Wisconsin-Madison students to pursue interests in journalism, science, and new technology.
TomoTherapy, one of Madison’s fastest growing businesses, has raised an additional $14 million in investor financing.
It might seem odd that a long-haired hippie fresh out of University of Wisconsin-Madison would set aside his diplomas in business management and sociology, hop into a beat-up Corolla and head for Seattle, just to learn everything there is to know about coffee.
A new report commissioned by the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce in its effort to block a proposal to guarantee workers paid sick leave paints a catastrophic picture of what would happen if the measure were to be approved.
….UW-Madison economist Laura Dresser said that credible studies have shown that the sick leave ordinance would affect about 17 percent of businesses in Madison, and those firms would face less than a 3.5 percent increase in their labor costs.
She said that there were “serious problems” with the methodology employed by Northstar Economics, a private consulting group.
The Information Technology Association of Wisconsin has named a former Charter Communications executive and entrepreneur as its first president and CEO.
Jim Rice took the helm Jan. 1 at ITAW, which was formed last June by a group of Wisconsin businesses as the first statewide organization dedicated to advancing IT.
….In the early 1990s, Rice co-founded Stress Photonics, a technology spin-out from the UW-Madison Engineering Department in the area of thermoelastic stress analysis.
Unseasonably warm weather and another announcement that a state company received millions of dollars in venture funding make Wisconsin seem almost like, well, California.
Madison-based TomoTherapy Inc.’s revelation Wednesday that it raised an additional $14 million of private equity funding in late December brings to $33 million the amount of private equity capital three fast-growing Wisconsin firms said this week they’ve raised.
