LARAMIE - Wyoming was one of only three states that managed to add to their high-tech job rosters last year. Yet the Cowboy State has an image problem it is trying to combat with new programs that support homegrown entrepreneurs.

Wyoming technological entrepreneurs have secured millions of dollars in federal funding in the past few years, and there are plans for a small-business incubator in Laramie that would translate the University of Wyoming's brainpower into commercial products.

"I think Wyoming is on the brink of a new era,' Wyoming Business Council chief executive Tucker Fagan said. "To most states, what we're on the beginning of might not look like a boom, but to us it's a big deal.'

Wyoming is the most sparsely populated high-tech state but still managed to add 453 high-tech workers in 2002 for a total of 4,357 employees in the industry, according to an annual employment survey by the American Electronics Association.

By comparison, Colorado has the highest concentration of tech workers in the nation, with 98 of every 1,000 private-sector workers employed at tech firms. Colorado maintained that top ranking despite losing 27,000 high-tech jobs last year.

Still, high-tech workers in Wyoming know what their neighbors to the south think of them.

"Their response is always: Laramie? Really?' said Joscelyn Herzberg, marketing director for Handel Information Technologies in Laramie.

With no state taxes on corporate income, personal income or inventory, Wyoming is considered the "tax-friendliest' state for businesses by the National Tax Foundation. In theory, that should be a draw for would-be entrepreneurs. But the majority of Wyoming's new high-tech jobs are homegrown.

"We used to think that we could just stand facing south and chant three times and business would come our way because we don't have any income tax,' said Tom Johnson, director of the Southeast region for the Wyoming Business Council. "But lately, we've come to the realization that growing our own business is the most solid strategy for a sustainable future.'

Many of Wyoming's new high-tech jobs were created through the state's Phase 0 program, which helps businesses secure research and development grants and contracts through the federal Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

The federal programs make Phase I feasibility grants of up to $100,000 and Phase II prototype grants of up to $750,000.

"In the late '80s and early '90s, Wyoming was only getting maybe one Phase I a year, so $100,000 out of the $1.6 billion given out annually,' Fagan said. "Since Wyoming doesn't have a ready source of venture capital, we saw these programs as a real opportunity.'

To tap into that opportunity, the state added its own Phase 0, which gives $5,000 grants to help companies with promising ideas develop proposals for the larger federal grants.

"Wyoming businesspeople have a lot of great ideas, but often they're leery of dealing with the government and all the paperwork involved,' Fagan said. "We help walk them through the process.'

In 2003, the Wyoming Business Council funded 30 Phase 0 grants for a total of $120,000. This year, 13 SBIR/STTR awards were made totaling $3.05 million. Over the past three years, Wyoming small businesses received 40 awards totaling about $10.3 million.

Wyoming ideas that have been funded include technology to rapidly detect multiple bioterrorism agents; generate electricity using thermal energy extracted from existing underground coal and waste bank fires; and use variable polarization ultrasonic shear waves to isolate and quantify the competing effects of microstructure and stress on the acoustic properties of steel.

One company, CC Technology in Laramie, used $4 million in SBIR and STTR grants to develop new applications for a spectrometer now sold through its DeltaNu Division to scientists and academics worldwide.

In another effort to turn ideas into commercial products, the state is building a small-business incubator in conjunction with the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

"As research at the university has grown, there have been more and more research products that could be commercialized into small high-tech businesses,' said Bill Gern, vice president for research at the university. "All indicators point to the notion that we need to develop an incubator to help get these businesses off the ground.'

Construction of the building, which will be funded by $5.4 million from the state and $3.2 million in matching funds, is set to begin sometime next summer.

"We're not waiting for the building to be done to help small businesses get started,' Gern said. "It's our hope that we'll have people inside looking out at the ribbon-cutting.'

Gern hopes to see businesses grow out of the university's strongest fields of study, such as chemistry, molecular biology and mechanical engineering.

"By helping new companies we will be increasing the economy, and that will stem the flow of graduates to other markets,' Gern said. "In the end we will have another facet of the Wyoming economy that has staying power.'

While there is money and effort focused on growing new business, Wyoming officials are also working to bring new business to the state.

"When we advertise in national publications we get a lot of calls from people who say they never thought of Wyoming as a place to bring their business,' Fagan said. "They're like, 'I've been there and had a great time,' but they don't make the connection that they could live here.'

Although Wyoming has broadband capabilities, other advanced infrastructure amenities are lacking.

"We want Wyoming to be a player in the high-tech game,' Fagan said. "You can't take someone out to a cow pasture and tell them, 'In a year you'll have everything you need here to run a successful high-tech business.'

The state Legislature has allocated $25 million over the next three years to build tech-capable business parks.

"They (members of the state Legislature) understand the need to have the right infrastructure in place to level the playing field for Wyoming,' Fagan said.

New recruits will join a small, innovative existing high-tech community in Wyoming.

Herzberg's company, Handel IT, makes and manages the RiteTrack program, which is geared specifically toward social service agencies.

"Basically all the case management and tracking they were doing on paper before, they now can enter into a database,' Herzberg explained.

Clients of the company include the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles and the Arkansas Department of Youth Services.

There are some distinct advantages to being located in Wyoming, not the least of which is perception.

"We are perceived as being more honest and friendly because we're out west,' Herzberg said.

Handel Information Technologies was founded in 1997 by Even Brande. Brande, who is from Norway, had been working for another Laramie IT company.

Another successful Laramie business owner, John Pope, also came to Wyoming from another part of the world.

After receiving his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Wyoming, Pope went to work for a large biotech company and then moved to Tokyo to develop fuel-cell technology.

"When it came time to start my own business, I knew I wanted to do it in Laramie,' he said. "After my time at the university, I knew what a great resource it would be. After all, some of the top technical minds in the country come through here.

"And I knew Wyoming would be a good place to raise a family.'

The Department of Education's (ED) Institute of Education Sciences has released their FY2004 SBIR Grants solicitation which closes February 19, 2004.

ED expresses their Technical "Topics" as "Priorities" and this offering has two major priorities:

Priority 1 - Services: This priority supports research to develop effective business consulting services that can better serve the education community at both the local and State levels. The Institute's SBIR program invites proposals that seek to develop a plan or a business model for the provision of such services. More details about this priority can be found in the application package.
Priority 2 - Products: This priority supports the development of empirically derived educational products in the areas of reading, mathematics, science or character/pro-social development at the pre-kindergarten through postsecondary levels, including products that support teachers and administrators as well as products that are used directly by students. More details about this priority can be found in the application package.

Successful applicants will be expected to collect some empirical evidence as to the effectiveness of the service or product they are proposing, or, at a minimum, to incorporate a plan for measuring its efficacy and usefulness.