Wednesday was a travel day as the Davis Team arrived in Washington, DC. Davis CIO Rob White described the trip as “tiring” and reported, “the team spent much of their respective plane rides strategizing and discussing the objectives of the trip.”
He remarked that the team traveled from Sacramento through Denver where the temperature was a brisk 7 degrees and landed in Washington, DC where it was a sweltering 90 degrees. “An amazing swing in temperatures as we flew across the country.”
The big news was tweeted by Mr. White late on Wednesday. Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen joined Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA), Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN), Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), and Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) in reintroducing the Innovative Technologies Investment Incentive Act.
According to their press release, “This legislation will create jobs, accelerate economic growth, and make targeted investments that keep America on the cutting edge of innovation.”
“As our economy continues to recover, the Innovative Technologies Investment Incentive Act will provide an important boost to America’s most innovative small companies at a time when that boost is needed most,” said Congressman Van Hollen. “Putting Americans back to work is our number one priority. This pro-growth initiative – modeled after the highly successful Maryland Biotechnology Investment Incentive Tax Credit and similar legislation in other states – will leverage private capital to create good-paying jobs, reward innovation, and lay the foundation for our future prosperity.”
The big news, however, is that Davis got a plug from its own Congressman, John Garamendi.
“High tech businesses are the shining stars of our economy. Northern California’s technology clusters, including the City of Davis, have seen these businesses’ remarkable ability to generate economic growth and jobs,” said Congressman Garamendi. “However, there is a ‘valley of death,’ a slew of barriers that prevent an idea from becoming a profitable product, and foremost among these is stable financing. The Innovative Technologies Investment Incentive Act helps small businesses overcome these challenges and turbocharge America’s job creation machine.”
The bill includes a number of incentives for investment as the Innovative Technologies Investment Incentive Act will:
- ACCELERATE INNOVATION by providing a 25 percent tax credit for qualified equity investments in eligible high technology and biotechnology small business concerns.
- INVEST IN QUALITY by directing credit-qualified investments only to those small businesses that have met the federal government’s rigorous requirements for receiving Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant awards.
- CONTROL COSTS by establishing a per company cap for the Innovative Technology Investment Credit at one half the value of the receiving company’s SBIR award and an initial program cap of $500 million.
- REWARD LONG-TERM INVESTMENT by requiring a holding period of at least three years for qualified investments.
“Small businesses are the largest job creators in the country. The Innovative Technologies Investment Incentive Act will give our entrepreneurs and innovators the tools and resources they need to continue to grow, hire and compete. Developing America’s small businesses is critical to our economic recovery and this bill will help ensure our nation’s leadership in the global marketplace,” said Congresswoman Schwartz.
Meetings on Thursday will include:
Chamber of Commerce, and recent UC Davis grads. Those arriving Wednesday included:
- Rochelle Swanson – Davis City Councilmember
- Don Saylor – Yolo County Board of Supervisors
- Kemble Pope – Davis Chamber of Commerce Executive
- David Morris – techDavis and Capital Corridor
- Karen Bond – Cedaron
- Marge Dickinson – UC Davis
- Tim Gaffney – DSIDE and Davis resident
- Kari Fry – The Centaur Group
- Laura McCollough – Recent UCD Grad
- Catherine Hawe – Recent UCD Grad
- Rob White – Davis Chief Innovation Officer
Rob White added, “Davis Councilmember Lucas Frerichs is taking the red eye and will land tomorrow morning and join the team for a full day.”
Blogging by Councilmember Rochelle Swanson will begin tomorrow morning.
—David M. Greenwald reporting reporting
Where is this being written? A dateline would be helpful.
I wrote it today. Starting tomorrow, Rochelle Swanson will be blogging from DC.
Which of these folks is getting any expenses paid for by the city? How was the lobbying team selected?
Did you write it from here or there?
I’m in Davis.
I’m trying to get an answer on the funding source, JustSaying.
Looks promising. I just hope we don’t get too exclusionary focusing on one set of NAICS codes for our economic development strategy. Some more blue-collar jobs would be good for this community.
i want to know what people like mike bisch think of all this