State and local officials, economic development recruiters and business leaders gather for the celebratory press conference to announce a major new company is moving to the area.
We have seen more than our share of such news here in the Research Triangle area in recent years, as success begets indicators of an attractive relocation area which, in turn, help beget more success.
But anyone would be forgiven if they wondered if the Great Recession has disrupted that pattern.
It has, no doubt, slowed it. Think not that it has been derailed, though, as evidenced by Tuesday's announcement that IEM, a consulting firm, is moving its headquarters to Durham's Research Triangle Park. The company, now based in Baton Rouge, La., will offer about 350 workers the opportunity to move here and expects to hire several hundred additional workers in this area.
The announcement was rightly welcomed. For one thing, the company brings "good-paying jobs" -- and then some. The company's average annual salary is $62,778, comfortably above the average in Durham of $57,772.
To be making that announcement as the country, and our relatively well-off part of it, are beginning to inch bark toward normalcy, helps fuel the momentum in that direction.
But we were especially heartened by the reasons IEM chose this particular place to relocate. IEM's CEO Madhu Beriwal said the decision came down to three qualities: "education, innovation and collaboration."
We have in this area among the highest per capita rate of highly educated people in the country, and Beriwal cited that fact.
"We have working for us more Ph. Ds per capita than many communities," she told The Herald-Sun's Neil Offen. "We need highly educated people -- sometimes in some arcane disciplines like atmospheric science -- and this area, with all its universities, can provide them."
We've been refining our collective skills in that direction for decades, and sometimes it is hard to remember that the challenge that bringing that kind knowledge-based business to the area is never easy. In this case, economic development officials at state and local levels, with the support of local elected leadership, were able to lay out a sound case. Carefully targeted incentives are part of that package, as is almost critical in recruitment these days, helped.
At the end of the day, we were attractive to IEM, and it is the kind of new business highly attractive to us.
We welcome IEM to the area.
