BioIndustry in Wisconsin and The New North

Although the 14 December BioIndustry conference in Wisconsin Dells was more heavily focused on investing than on technical or other non-financial details of the BioIndustry in Wisconsin, it was still worth my time going to it.

The title of the event was "Investing In Agriculture", so the emphasis on investment certainly couldn't be construed as unwarranted or unexpected, but my interests are more on the innovation and nitty-gritty research and operation details of the industry sector than they are on the financing and investment aspects.

However, there were some excellent contacts for the biorefinery sector at the event with whom follow-up will be done, such as Greg Lawless from the Agricultural Innovation Center, Gena Cooper from the Dept of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, Mike Robinson from North Prairie Productions, John Biondi from C5-6 Technologies/Lucigen, John Madole from J. C. Madole Associates, Doug Johnson from Environmental Intelligence, and Andrew Clark from NWTC.

The PPNB industry supercluster concept (pulp & paper, printing, nonwovens and biorefinery) was of interest to a number of the above people. Follow-up will be done with the above people to pursue discussions, meetings and other actions in northeast Wisconsin concerning the PPNB supercluster.

The PPNB supercluster proposed in the 2003 Northeast Wisconsin Economic Opportunity Study is a good fit for the New North's economy. It will be interesting to see how both the biorefinery cluster and the PPNB supercluster develop over the next few years.

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