Historical News

Historical announcements from the original website. These planning statements are preserved for reference; they are not current event notices.

TechTrends Return — Original Planning Notices

The original Home content described a proposed return to SMART's 1999–2004 TechTrends series of annual R&D conventions, held in spring and rotated among the Mid-Atlantic states. It described SMART PROC GOVCON as a fall procurement series held in Frederick, Maryland, since 2004, and proposed a TechTrends return to Atlantic City, New Jersey, in spring 2024.

The original News page instead stated that TechTrends would restart in 2025, hosted in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It described the spring R&D event as complementary to the fall SMART PROC GOVCON event.

The source contains conflicting 2024 and 2025 restart plans. Neither statement establishes the actual event date. The existing TechTrends 2027 page is preserved separately.

Drive for Data Across America — 2024 Planning

The original Home page described Drive for Data Across America as a Virginia Tech alumni-founded program gathering national grassroots workforce-shortage data across automotive, motorsports and aviation communities, including public and private workforces. Data would be presented each fall on Capitol Hill to Congress, the Federal Executive Branch and private businesses to inform their actions.

The charity component was intended to fund local Veterans’ Unfunded Healthcare projects at major stops and present the compiled information.

The original News page identified DDAA as the top program priority and described plans for a February event in southeastern Pennsylvania to launch 2024 activity. See Programs for the complete 2024 archive.

Historical Program Information

Contact Robert Carullo at bcarullo@smartstates.com or 609-304-2904 for clarification.