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Investments help Port, Michoud, evaluation says
Wednesday, July 04, 2007By Ronette King
Before wrapping up the session in Baton Rouge on Friday, the state Legislature set aside money for improvements at the Port of New Orleans, new equipment at the Michoud Assembly Facility, and several other projects designed to nudge the city's post-Hurricane Katrina recovery along.
As head of the local economic development group GNO Inc., Mark Drennen said Tuesday he is pleased overall with the investments in infrastructure as well as funding allocated to rebuild and woo instructors to four-year college campuses and community and technical colleges.
"We wanted to get the community and technical schools adequately funded so they would be able to train people to work in the new industries," Drennen said.
Of 1,318 bills filed during the 2007 regular Legislative session, GNO Inc. was tracking 321 bills and considered 41 of them to be high priority. Of those priority bills, 14 passed the Legislature.
Fulfilling a promise to support the aerospace industry based at the Michoud Assembly Facility, the Blanco administration supported a $20 million investment in new equipment and facilities at the eastern New Orleans plant.
The centerpiece is a friction stir welder that will be used on NASA's Orion program to build the next generation space vehicle, said Russ Trahan, dean of the University of New Orleans College of Engineering. This will be the second friction stir welding machine to be located at Michoud.
UNO, which is partnering with Lockheed Martin on the Orion project, also was approved to seek another $75.5 million to construct a new building at Michoud to house classrooms and offices for contractors working on the project.
A major project that got Legislative support called for making improvements at the Port of New Orleans to add space for another megaship to dock. The Port of New Orleans received $7.5 million to build a new cruise ship terminal at Poland Avenue. With the additional terminal capacity, the Port will be able to host three mega-cruise ships that each hold 3,600 to 5,500 passengers, plus a smaller ship.
http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-1/118352987042320.xml&coll=1
Wednesday, July 04, 2007By Ronette King
Before wrapping up the session in Baton Rouge on Friday, the state Legislature set aside money for improvements at the Port of New Orleans, new equipment at the Michoud Assembly Facility, and several other projects designed to nudge the city's post-Hurricane Katrina recovery along.
As head of the local economic development group GNO Inc., Mark Drennen said Tuesday he is pleased overall with the investments in infrastructure as well as funding allocated to rebuild and woo instructors to four-year college campuses and community and technical colleges.
"We wanted to get the community and technical schools adequately funded so they would be able to train people to work in the new industries," Drennen said.
Of 1,318 bills filed during the 2007 regular Legislative session, GNO Inc. was tracking 321 bills and considered 41 of them to be high priority. Of those priority bills, 14 passed the Legislature.
Fulfilling a promise to support the aerospace industry based at the Michoud Assembly Facility, the Blanco administration supported a $20 million investment in new equipment and facilities at the eastern New Orleans plant.
The centerpiece is a friction stir welder that will be used on NASA's Orion program to build the next generation space vehicle, said Russ Trahan, dean of the University of New Orleans College of Engineering. This will be the second friction stir welding machine to be located at Michoud.
UNO, which is partnering with Lockheed Martin on the Orion project, also was approved to seek another $75.5 million to construct a new building at Michoud to house classrooms and offices for contractors working on the project.
A major project that got Legislative support called for making improvements at the Port of New Orleans to add space for another megaship to dock. The Port of New Orleans received $7.5 million to build a new cruise ship terminal at Poland Avenue. With the additional terminal capacity, the Port will be able to host three mega-cruise ships that each hold 3,600 to 5,500 passengers, plus a smaller ship.
http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-1/118352987042320.xml&coll=1