National TeleHealth & Tech Center Est. at JBLM

The Department of the Army announced today the planned activation of the National Center for Telehealth and Technology at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

This stationing action represents an increase of eight military and 67 civilian authorizations and is expected to be completed in April 2010.

The mission of the National Center for Telehealth and Technology is to foster, develop, research, and deploy technology solutions for psychological health and traumatic brain injury and deliver relevant, evidence-based applications for our warriors, veterans and their families.

This force structure action complies with the recommendations of the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors (Dole/Shalala Report) and the assistant secretary of defense (health affairs) memorandum, Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.

Point of contact for this notification is Lt. Col. Lee M. Packnett, 703-614-2487, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, Office of the Secretary of the Army.

Pierce County Gets One of 13

Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington State Department of Commerce announced the recipients of more than $16.5 million in grants and loans from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for energy efficiency, clean technology, transportation and bioenergy programs throughout the state.

The 13 private and public projects were selected based on their energy savings, jobs created or retained and matching funds – and support projects across the state, including:

LeMay Enterprises
Applicant: Dan Schooler – 253-537-8687
Category: Transportation
Project: Natural gas refuse truck deployment
Award: $931,422 ($700,000 loan / $231,422 grant)
(Pierce County) LeMay will purchase new diesel waste collection trucks and convert them to compressed natural gas, and install a compressed natural gas refueling station for their fleet. Funding will help cover the incremental cost of truck conversions and help with part of the refueling station cost. Project will enable LeMay to take first step in their strategy of converting most of their 100-truck fleet to compressed natural gas. Project could save about 1 million gallons of petroleum diesel over the lifetime of 10 trucks, while achieving significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Supports 35 jobs during the conversion phase and retain 18 permanent jobs.

To see a full list of Washington projects receiving funding visit here.

Washington's Innovation Summit 2010

Full Agenda Now Available for first Washington Summit in Tacoma - AND a brace of discount options for Tacoma registrants:

And A Wonderful Time Was Had By All

Kudos to Sitecrafting for the first annual SHIFT awards.  Sitecrafting invented this recognition for South Sound businesses that demonstrate successful, creative approaches to utilizing or developing technology for the purposes of company sustainability.

If you wish to see the visual presentations for each winning company, go here.

Earlier blogs on the winners are available here.

My kudos also to the sponsors that stepped up for this celebratory event:  City of Tacoma, Optic Fusion, Business Examiner, Jonz Catering and AA Party Rentals.  All the ~100 attendees last night had a wonderful time!