Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Karen Rivedal

A California biotech consulting firm that pledged to create at least 103 local jobs by 2017 will get a $1 million low-interest loan from the state to help it buy an under-used pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in University Research Park where it plans to make cancer-fighting and other types of drugs for other companies.

The former Mentor Biologics building, originally designed to produce an anti-wrinkle compound but never used for that purpose, had been owned by the Morgridge Institute for Research since 2010. It was sold June 30 to Pomona, California-based PSC Biotech Corp., about one year after the Morgridge Institute — a private research partner of UW-Madison — put it on the market, officials said.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Thursday at the facility at 5501 Research Park Boulevard, though drug production isn’t slated to begin there until 2015.

“This is just great news, not only for the research park, but for Madison,” said Aaron Olver, the newly hired managing director of University Research Park who formerly ran economic development efforts for the city.

“They’re a perfect match for the building and its capabilities,” Olver said of PSC Biotech. “They’re a great complement to what’s going on in the research park, and they’ll be a good resource for some of the companies in town that might want to use their services.”

“We are excited by the opportunity to do our part in meeting the high demand for cytotoxic drugs and by the vast potential that this … facility brings,” PSC Biotech CEO John Clapham said in remarks at the ribbon-cutting.

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Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Judy Newman

Local entrepreneurs will have a chance to pitch to a pioneer Internet entrepreneur and win a $100,000 investment when Steve Case and Google for Entrepreneurs come to Madison in October with their Rise of the Rest road trip.

Case co-founded America Online in 1985; 20 years later, in 2005, he co-founded Revolution, a Washington, D.C., investment firm, and since then chaired the Startup America Partnership, a White House push to support entrepreneurs. Case and his wife, Jean, also set up the philanthropic Case Foundation in 1997.

The Rise of the Rest Road Trip started in June, when Case met start-ups in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Nashville and invested $100,000 in one company in each city.

Round two of “Rise of the Rest” bus tour starts in Madison on Oct. 6 and goes on to Minneapolis, Des Moines, Kansas City and St. Louis.

“The idea behind Rise of the Rest is that entrepreneurship can happen anywhere and that you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley or New York City to turn a great idea into a high-growth start-up,” Case said in an email. “Madison embodies that mission. The combination of a first-rate talent pool and anchor institutions like (UW-Madison) and gener8tor give it a unique and enduring platform upon which to build a vibrant start-up community.”

Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, said the tour’s stop here sends a strong message. “Midwest cities such as Madison are emerging as centers of innovation and hubs for young companies. The road trip is more evidence that investors and tech leaders from outside the region are well aware of our rising communities and companies that choose to grow here,” Still said.

Applications will be accepted through Sept. 21 at www.riseoftherest.com. About 10 companies will be chosen to make a pitch at the Majestic Theatre, and one will receive $100,000.

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Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Judy Newman

Sixteen south-central Wisconsin companies are in the 2014 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing privately owned U.S. companies, ranked by the website inc.com.

They include two that are among the 50 reporting the biggest percentage revenue growth over a three-year period: Restore Health and Nordic Consulting, both of Madison and both in the health field.

Restore Health is No. 36, with 6,663 percent growth, from $101,00 revenue in 2010 to $6.8 million in 2013. The company makes customized drugs and has 61 employees. Last year, ?itwas No. 80 on the Inc. 5000 list.

Nordic Consulting had a 46th-place ranking with 5,593 percent growth, from $1.4 million in revenue in 2010 to $81.4 million last year. It was not on the 2013 list.

Nordic, with 379 employees, provides consultants to organizations that use electronic health records systems created by Epic Systems Corp., Verona.

Others are:

• No. 900: AccuLynx, Beloit
• No. 969: RevolutionEHR, Madison
• No. 1,866: Information Technology Professionals, Madison
• No. 1,907: SASid, Janesville
• No. 2,608: WTS Paradigm, Middleton
• No. 2,639: Vom Fass USA, Madison
• No. 2,941: Quincy Bioscience, Madison
• No. 3,017: Data Dimensions, Janesville
• No. 3,483: Synergy Consortium Services, Madison
• No. 3,565: Adesys, Fitchburg
• No. 3,724: Midwest Prototyping, Blue Mounds
• No. 4,209: New Glarus Brewing, New Glarus
• No. 4,452: bb7, Madison
• No. 4,950: ABC Supply, Beloit

Revenue figures are voluntarily self-reported. Still, it is considered a respectable list — “something people pay attention to,” said UW-Madison School of Business associate professor Jim Seward.

“The types of technologies that they’re involved in and new hiring that goes on at these — collectively, it’s a big deal,” Seward said.

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Excerpted from Portage Daily Register
By Craig Sauer

Saint-Gobain, a French multinational high-performance materials company, plans to expand its Portage plant and create as many as 120 new jobs.

Plant representatives met with the city officials Monday to discuss the near-50,000 square-foot expansion that will also include exterior improvements.

“We want to continue to grow and hire more of our fine friends around the Portage area,” said Russel Straka Jr., engineering services manager for Saint-Gobain.

Straka said the Portage plant, which was last expanded in 2003, is “at capacity” making mostly medical devices.

The city’s Plan Commission, which oversees development in the city, approved the project plans on a 5-0 vote. A few details will still need to be worked out, but the project appears slated to go forward.

City leaders welcomed the expansion Monday and praised Saint-Gobain’s professional engineering design work and for prioritizing safety and exterior landscaping in the plans.

“Thank you for investing in Portage,” said Portage’s Director of Business Development and Planning Steven Sobiek.

The current Portage plant, located off Wisconsin Street on the city’s northwest side, is about 75,000 square-feet. The company currently employs about 300.

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Excerpted from forbes.com
By Erin Carlyle

The American economy has pumped out more than 200,000 jobs a month for six months running, as of the latest (July) numbers. Still, more than 2 million college-educated workers age 25 or older are unemployed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers age 25 to 34 face a 6.6% unemployment rate—the highest of any group other than the one encompassing new grads (ages 20-24).

To find out which cities offer the best prospects for professionals aged 24 to 34 who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, we analyzed the 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (cities and their surrounding suburbs) as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, ranking them on seven factors with an equal weight on each. We considered local unemployment rates (projected 2014 annual) and 2014-2016 job growth projections, provided by Moody’s and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We assessed the number of small businesses less than 500 employees) per capita as well as large ones, using the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. We also factored in median salaries for 24- to 34-year-old employed college graduates, using data provided by Payscale.com. And we rated how far these salaries might go with the help of Moody’s cost-of-living index. Finally, we considered Census data on the percentage of the local population aged 25 and older with bachelor’s degrees or higher.

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