The Z Files

Summer is here, so I hope you’ve had a chance to enjoy some sun — and maybe noticed that our newsletter’s had a bit of a glow-up too! Keep an eye out: Our weekly events email is getting a fresh new look soon as well.

The National Meeting has drawn to a close. Thank you to all our speakers and planners, as well as all of you who participated. While not quite a record for registration, we were very close to setting a new all-time high from our virtual National Meetings during COVID. This year, it was much harder for people to attend because they are at the office — where work carries on — versus at home, but we still saw fantastic numbers of people who were able to take in training and sessions, with well north of 1,000 total registrants. While we do get very high numbers for virtual meetings, they are consistently less effective for networking, and networking is one of the highest-rated reasons why people attend.

We did have some twists this year. We stretched the National Meeting over multiple weeks because we know that working in the office makes it hard to dedicate unbroken time and that sitting in front of a screen for a long time can lead to fatigue. However, if there is something you missed, have no fear! Recordings of the trainings and sessions are available in the FLC Learning Center at this link. You can also watch the Awards Ceremony, keynote, and other general sessions, plus revisit sessions and trainings from past years.

Now, it is time to look forward. We have already booked the 2026 in-person National Meeting at the Seattle Westin from May 12 to 14. A call for topics will go out in late summer and we will be looking through your feedback on what worked and where we can do better. Please save the dates for next year. We look forward to seeing you there!

I was hoping that by the time I wrote this column, there would be more information on the H.R.1 - One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill passed the House back in May (and yes, that is the official name of the bill now, as passed by the House). The Senate was targeting to have a vote before Independence Day, but that timeline may not be met as the process continues to fluctuate. The bill primarily addresses taxes, but there are provisions that have been proposed that impact federal employees. At this point, there does not seem to be anything directly targeting the tech transfer mission. This should not be too surprising, given the importance of tech transfer in the completion of agency R&D missions and our overall national economic strength.

We have seen a large amount of change in our FLC Agency Representatives with both promotions and retirements over the past year. These are people designated under the Federal Technology Transfer Act as “a senior representative appointed from each Federal agency with one or more member laboratories.” While often working behind the scenes, the Agency Representatives play a key role in coordinating with the FLC on specific agency needs and requirements.

The various personnel reductions have not targeted our profession, but we have also seen asymmetric changes. The hiring freeze is targeted to end July 15, so we will likely welcome some new people to tech transfer. There are many details in the memorandum from the Office of Personnel Management, but one big factor will be a 1:4 ratio for rehiring positions. There are many sites that cover this information, but rest assured, the FLC will be ready to help provide critical knowledge and training.

While there are several big updates pending, we can only prepare and wait for key decisions to be made. So, that brings us back to summer. Hopefully, while we wait for those updates, you can get a little rest and celebrate Independence Day with some extra time off!