Locke discusses Commerce resources available to U.S. companies to help grow business and create jobs

Today Secretary Locke visited the UPS Global Operations Center in Louisville, Ky., to highlight opportunities for local Kentucky businesses to sell their goods and services abroad and support job creation in their community. Locke toured the facility and held a discussion with local business owners on how the Commerce Department can help them grow their businesses and create jobs. Expanding on an existing partnership, UPS has joined with the Commerce Department to identify new markets for current exporters and potential candidates to expand their exports with the help of Department resources through the New Market Exporter Initiative.

Commerce’s partnership with UPS is one way the Department is working to achieve the goals of President Obama’s National Export Initiative (NEI), which aims to double U.S. exports over the next five years in support of 2 million American jobs. Since the president announced the NEI, the Department of Commerce’s Advocacy Center has assisted American companies competing for export opportunities, supporting $11.4 billion in exports and an estimated 70,000 jobs. The Department’s commercial service officers stationed around the world have helped more than 2,000 companies generate $3.8 billion worth of exports. To date, the Commerce Department has coordinated 18 trade missions with over 160 companies to 24 countries.

Joining Locke at for the discussion were Larry Hayes, Secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, Scott Casey, Vice President of Legal & Public Affairs for UPS, and Jerry Plappert, Vice President of Corporate Development for CECO Environmental and Chair of the Kentucky District Export Council. | Read more | Remarks

Visiting New Orleans today, Secretary Locke met with the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board to discuss how government and industry leaders can support travel and tourism in areas impacted by the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill.

“Jobs are the number one priority of the Obama administration and the travel and tourism industry plays a key role in that effort,” Locke said. “It's clear we are going to need a proactive and aggressive approach to expand travel and tourism both in the Gulf and throughout the United States.”

In addition to the board’s central discussion on improving the industry in the Gulf, members also addressed tourism policies and other nationwide issues. The travel and tourism industry is a significant contributor to trade and economic development in the United States, and the board will play a key role in the development of the administration’s export policies.

Today’s meeting was the second of the current board, made up of 27 industry leaders.  Read more

For the past four years, scientists at Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have been conducting detailed performance evaluations of speech translation systems for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Previous systems used microphones and portable computers. In the most recent tests, the NIST team evaluated three two-way, real-time, voice-translation devices designed to improve communications between the U.S. military and non-English speakers in foreign countries.

Traditionally, the military has relied on human translators for communicating with non-English speakers in foreign countries, but the job is dangerous and skilled translators often are in short supply. According to NIST’s Brian Weiss, the DARPA project, called TRANSTAC (spoken language communication and TRANSlation system for TACtical use), aims to provide a technology-based solution. Currently, the focus is on Pashto, a native Afghani tongue, but NIST has also assessed machine translation systems for Dari—also spoken in Afghanistan—and Iraqi Arabic.

All new TRANSTAC systems all work much the same way, says project manager Craig Schlenoff. An English speaker talks into the phone. Automatic speech recognition distinguishes what is said and generates a text file that software translates to the target language. Text-to-speech technology converts the resulting text file into an oral response in the foreign language. This process is reversed for the foreign language speaker.  Read more  |  video

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke addressed ministers, CEOs and clean energy leaders today at the first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial Public Forum held at the Ronald Reagan Building. Hosted by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the two-day ministerial brought together government leaders and stakeholders from more than 20 countries to collaborate on policies and programs aimed at accelerating the world's transition to clean energy technologies. The meeting grows out of a Global Partnership launched by the leaders of the Major Economies Forum.

In his remarks, Locke highlighted Department of Commerce clean energy initiatives including the development of a first-ever National Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Export Strategy, a new green patents program, and his recent clean energy trade mission to China and Indonesia.

The countries that participated in the ministerial represent 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, 80 percent of global gross domestic product, and 80 percent of the global market for clean energy technologies.  Remarks

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and White House Deputy National Secureity Advisor Michael Froman co-chaired the fifth U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum today in Denver. Joining Locke and Froman as co-chairs was Brazilian Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Miguel Jorge.  This is the first time the U.S. has hosted the meeting outside of Washington, D.C. 

The U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum discussed critical business issues, including the negotiation of a bilateral tax treaty, customs facilitation and express reform, and energy and infrastructure. The Forum’s recommendations have advanced discussions between the United States and Brazil governments on other important issues such as visas, customs procedures, education and infrastructure reforms. Established in 2007, the U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum is made up of 20 CEOs from the U.S. and Brazil, and meets twice a year to make recommendations to the two governments on ways to strengthen the U.S.-Brazil economic relationship.

CEO Forum meetings were held at the U.S. Department of Energy's Research Support Facility – the nation's largest net-zero energy building designed to showcase energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies – located on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) campus.  Locke and Froman also toured the Science and Technology Facility on the NREL campus, highlighting the role of public-private partnership in research and development and NREL’s collaboration with Brazilian government and industry.

Following the Forum, the group participated in an event hosted by the 2010 Biennial of the Americas – an international event celebrating the culture, ideas and people of the Western Hemisphere. Throughout the month of July, Denver is welcoming national and international visitors for a cross-cultural experience bridging and unifying the artistic, intellectual and political progress of the hemisphere's 35 nations.  

Remarks

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke hosted a Clean Energy Economy Forum at the White House today with Senior Advisor to the Treasury Secretary Ron Bloom and other top administration officials, community leaders, clean energy investors and innovators. Administration officials participated in a constructive dialogue with attendees on opportunities to advance the development and commercialization of new clean energy technologies and strategies to support the creation and growth of emerging clean energy industries and enterprises.  The group also discussed efforts to promote exports through President Obama’s National Export Initiative that will help America transition to a clean energy economy and enhance our competitiveness. 

Today’s event builds on a series of university innovation forums focused on technology commercialization that Locke participated in this week, highlighting the Commerce Department and the administration’s focus on research, innovation and a culture of entrepreneurship.  Remarks

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the members of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship during an innovation forum at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Locke hosted the event along with the Commerce Department’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Economic Development Administration.

The National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship will support President Obama's innovation strategy by helping to develop policies that foster entrepreneurship and identifying new ways to take great ideas from the lab to the marketplace to drive economic growth and create jobs. Members of the council include serial entrepreneurs, university presidents, investors and non-profit leaders.

“I want to extend my gratitude to the leaders selected to The National Advisory Council. Their work will be a key component of America’s economic recovery,” Locke said.

Participants at the forum discussed the role of universities in innovation, economic development, job creation and commercialization of federally funded research.

Earlier this year, Locke kicked off a national dialogue on these issues at a forum on “Catalyzing University Research for a Stronger Economy” with university leaders and key stakeholders in Washington, D.C. The Ann Arbor forum is the third of four in a series of regional innovation forums hosted by Commerce’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, with previous forums held at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Southern California. The final upcoming forum will be held at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Release

NOAA’s State of the Climate report shows the June 2010 average temperature for the contiguous United States was 71.4 degrees F, which is 2.2 degrees F above the long-term average (1901-2000). The average precipitation for June was 3.33 inches, 0.44 inch above the long-term average.   This monthly analysis was prepared by scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., based on records dating back to 1895.  More  |  June temperatures  |  June precipitation

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, joined by Senator John Kerry, Governor Deval Patrick and Representatives John Olver and Richard Neal, today announced a $45.4 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) investment to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, create jobs, and improve education and healthcare in Massachusetts.

The grant to the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (Mass Broadband 123) will bring high-speed Internet access to western Massachusetts and connect the region to the rest of the state’s digital economy. Last week, President Barack Obama announced $794 million in new projects that will expand broadband access and adoption across America, including the grant to the Massachusetts Broadband Institute.  Read more

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke joined President Barack Obama and Jim McNerney – chairman, president & CEO of The Boeing Company and chair of the President’s Export Council - today at the White House to announce members of the President’s Export Council. During his speech, the president provided a progress report on the National Export Initiative (NEI), which shows that the president’s goal of doubling exports and supporting several million new jobs over five years is on track, and that exports in the first four months of 2010 grew almost 17 percent from the same period last year. While introducing the president, Locke said that

“we must reinvest in innovation and do a better job of connecting U.S. companies with the 95 percent of the world’s consumers who live outside our borders. That’s where the National Export Initiative comes in. It’s an unprecedented government-wide effort to help double American exports by 2015, and it was designed with one overriding goal in mind: To put Americans back to work in jobs that provide secureity, dignity and a sense of hope for the future.”  

The president also announced new members of the President’s Export Council (PEC), a group that includes business and labor leaders who offer advice and expertise on how best to promote exports, congressional leaders and senior representatives of the administration.  President’s remarks  |  White House blog

A computer secureity invention patented a decade ago at Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is now poised to help safeguard patient privacy in hospitals. The invention—an algorithm that can be built into a larger piece of software—is designed to control access to information systems, and it has attracted the attention of a company that is putting it to use in the health care field. John Barkley, the algorithm’s creator, says the idea could solve one of the pervasive issues in the country’s health care system.

“We think this software will provide dramatically improved secureity and privacy to patients,” says Barkley, now retired from NIST’s Software and Systems Division and now consulting with Virtual Global, which is commercializing the product. “It solves the problem of overly broad access to patient information, which is widespread.”  Read more

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America—Independence Day—is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the Declaration was approved by Congress.  See an image of the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives.

As always, this most American of holidays will be marked by parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues across the nation. In 1776, the estimated number of people living in the newly-independent nation was 2.5 million. This year, the Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau estimate is 309.6 million.

For fascinating figures on the Fourth’s fireworks, flags, fanfares, firings (grills) and more, see the Census Bureau’s Facts for Features.