I have been retained by Boston-based Jobs for the Future (JFF) to serve as a subject-matter expert (SME) on economic development under a $4.6-million cooperative agreement funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA).

JFF received this award from EDA to manage a “community of practice” (CoP) that will provide program support to organizations around the nation that are receiving EDA grants under the $500-million Good Jobs Challenge (GJC) funded through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021. One of six main ARP programs, the GJC is focused on the current need for equitable recovery from the economic shock of the pandemic years by making transformative investments in innovation in locally led workforce-training systems.

[continue reading…]

I am pleased to announce that I have a chapter appearing in a newly published Handbook of Research on Business and Technology Incubation and Acceleration co-edited by my friend Prof. Sarfraz Mian, an international expert on the topic who is based at the State University of New York at Oswego.

Over the years I’ve written tens of thousands of words on topics related to business incubation and acceleration, but mostly as consulting work products or legislative testimony intended to influence public policy. This is the first time my thoughts – admittedly those of a practitioner, not a scholar – have been published in an academic book.

[continue reading…]

I am pleased to announce I have been appointed a trustee of Downstate Technology Center Inc., the not-for-profit operator of the SUNY Downstate Advanced Biotechnology Incubator, a 50,000 square-foot wet-lab facility that anchors a two-building “biotech park” nestled along Parkside Avenue in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.

This remarkable incubator – supported by all levels of government and now filled with a range of startup tenants operating mostly in the hardcore biosciences – has been under planning and development since the late 1990s, when I began following the initiative, somewhat before its sponsors even knew anything about me.

[continue reading…]