(WisBusiness) WED News Summary — 25 Feb. 2009

From WisBusiness.com …

— When they are up and running in 20 months, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery should be a “cauldron of exciting interactions” between researchers, social scientists, artists, educators and the public, former UW-Madison Chancellor John D. Wiley says.

“Ten years from now, I hope we’ll look back on a lot of great new stuff and say this is where it started,” said Wiley, the interim director of the public half of the new research center that backers hope will be a model of interdisciplinary and collaborative science.

Wiley was joined at a Wisconsin Innovation Network luncheon in Madison on Tuesday by Carl Gulbrandsen, WARF’s managing director. He’s also the board chairman for the Morgridge Institute for Research, the private half of the $150 million, 165,000-square-foot WID project. It’s expected to open in the fall of 2010.

Wiley said he expects breakthroughs to come from “interfaces between interdisciplinary clusters” of scientists who are rubbing shoulders not only in their labs but in the new building’s public spaces.

Gulbrandsen said the Morgridge Institute – as a private entity – will be more nimble than its public half and have a special emphasis on helping discoveries make their way into the marketplace to become jobs, companies and products.

Gulbrandsen also will be the guest at the next WisBusiness.com luncheon at the Madison Club this coming Monday, March 2.

The event is open to the public, and the price for lunch is $19. Call the Madison Club to register at (608) 255-4861. The luncheon starts at 11:45 a.m. and ends at 1 p.m.

See more: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=150270

— A Ford Motor Company executive says a contract for lithium-ion hybrid car batteries will keep engineers in Wisconsin busy for the next five years, but he didn’t know when it would bring manufacturing jobs to the United States.

Robert Iorio, Ford manager of Hybrid Propulsion System Implementation Engineering, said engineers with Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls-Saft are designing new batteries for Ford’s production of plug-in hybrid vehicles. Johnson Controls-Saft recently signed a five-year contract with Ford and has a target of producing 5,000 units a year and will be featured in a line of cars in 2012.

For now, the manufacturing jobs will be in Nersac, France. Iorio said that it’s only a matter of time before manufacturing jobs for hybrid vehicle batteries will come to the United States, as American car companies are moving in that direction.

Iorio made the comments Tuesday in a phone interview while he was visiting the 2009 Greater Milwaukee Auto Show. While news outlets covering the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year reported a depressed mood at the expo, with fewer “goodies” involved, Iorio said he doesn’t see or feel that around the Ford display.

“It’s very similar to previous years. I think it’s very indicative of the position we’re in,” Iorio said, referring to Ford not asking for bailout money from Congress as did General Motors and Chrysler. “It looks great. We have a tremendous amount of product here.”

Iorio said he thinks Ford is in a better place than the other U.S. car manufacturers because it began restructuring a few years ago and developed product plans then. He said when Ford began restructuring, the company was aware a global economic slowdown was on the horizon.

He added this stability helps his team concentrate on its product development.

“I think I would notice it if there were a flurry of changes everyday,” Iorio said. “I don’t see that, and our engineers are focused.”

See more from Iorio soon at http://www.wisbusiness.com

— The state has reached a settlement with Baxter Healthcare Corp. over allegations that the pharmaceutical company defrauded the Wisconsin Medicaid program, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced. Baxter agreed to pay the state more than $1 million in restitution and litigation costs.

The lawsuit charged the corporation knowingly reported inflated prescription drug prices to the Medicaid pharmaceutical reimbursement system. Baxter is one of 36 pharmaceutical manufacturers DOJ targeted with similar allegations. The settlement comes in the wake of a $9 million verdict against Pharmacia last week, while additional settlements totaling $2 million were reached with defendants Amgen and Immunex in December.

— Sokaogon Chippewa Community tribal chairman Arlyn Ackley told a joint session of the Legislature that tribes in the northern part of the state need highway infrastructure improvements to foster the tourism industry.

Ackley, who filled in for an ailing Bad River chairman Eugene Bigboy, delivered a mostly off-the-cuff speech in the annual State of the Tribes Address Tuesday. The Crandon-based Sokaogon are the state’s smallest tribe.

Ackley said the tribe has “struggled for many years” and that improvements are needed north of State Highway 8 to bring tourism to the area.

“We need four-lane highways up north, too,” Ackley said. “There’s more to life than just coming to Madison and Milwaukee.”

He also asked that the legislators consider expanding snowmobile and ATV trails up north to “get those people from Chicago” to spend their dollars in the region.

Listen to Ackley’s address: http://wispolitics.com/1006/090224stateofthetribes.mp3

— Hilda Solis has been confirmed as Barack Obama’s Labor secretary.

That leaves cabinet openings at Commerce and HHS. The Senate voted 80-17 to confirm the California congresswoman. Concerns about pro-union activities and family tax issues held up the vote.

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