Business and Community Services Goal 1: Amplify and elevate the university’s relationship with local and regional communities. Initiative 1.1: Integrate our strategic planning and activities with the cities within Kittitas County and with the county as a whole, as well as with other cities and counties in our region. Initiative 1.2: Integrate our planning and activities at the Centers with the communities local to the Centers and include the Centers with campus-wide initiatives. Initiative 1.4: Participate in the creation and implementation of an economic development plan that builds a partnership between CWU and the cities within Kittitas County and with the county as a whole, as well as with other cities and counties in our region. Business and Community Services – We have been working with a variety of consultants and community partners on developing opportunities for developing a tech transfer hub. Two of the more recent activities include receiving a Washington Department of Commerce grant to renovate Old Heat and working with PacAero on potential academic intersections and investments. We have also been working at the federal level to be considered for congressional spending and have received a National Science Foundation grant to facilitate workforce development workshops in the region. Old Heat – working with Kittitas County, CWU launched “Forging the Future: A Regional Collaboration for Innovation and Growth” through a Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) grant. PacAero – We have been working with a number of advanced manufacturing industry partners within the region and across the State. One of these, PacAero in Wenatchee https://www.pacaero.com/, employs more than 400 people and is seeking to explore several potential connections to CWU: PacAero needs to establish a new talent and training partner to replace programs lost from Wenatchee Valley College; they are seeking academic partnerships in R&D to solve some of the design and manufacturing problems they are facing; eventually, they may be willing to support the launch of local supplier businesses as long-term partners depending on how the relationship grows. Congressional Directed Spending – We have made several requests to the federal government through Senators Cantwell and Murray involving the development of workforce pathways and advanced competitive technology (see appendix). We have also made a $30M request for development of Washington advanced manufacturing through Congressperson Strickland and Senator Cantwell in
partnership with Impact WA, the NIST MEP for our state https://www.impactwashington.org/ and the Washington Department of Commerce. Given what is happening at the federal level, we do not know if any of this work will come to fruition. | National Science Foundation grant – CWU received a 3 year, $400,000 NSF EPIIC grant to establish and strengthen academic program advisory board structures, and to engage regional and national industry. Our purpose is to develop capacity for industry / community / academic partnerships and use-inspired research as a steward- of-place focus to leverage CWU toward improvements in a regional innovation economy. This is a gateway grant toward larger NSF opportunities including 10-year, $160M NSF Regional Innovation Engines programs. Contributors : Rob Ogburn, Bill Provaznik, Coco Wu, Rikki Green, Edra Lyons, Ian Seymour, Claire Pritchard
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