The time is right for local technology companies to look outside the Puget Sound area for employees and new locations. As we complain about costs, traffic and the difficulty of finding good employees in Seattle, Tacoma and on the Eastside, rural areas of the state are facing high unemployment and a lack of opportunity that is crippling small communities. It doesn't have to be that way.
Rural communities are eager to welcome clean, high-tech companies.
Not only will local government smooth the way of a new employer, but skilled, high-quality potential employees will be lining up to interview for jobs. When my partners, Bill Miller and Brian Sterling, and I decided to locate SafeHarbor in Satsop in job-starved Grays Harbor County, we expected that our biggest challenges would be attracting the right people to a rural community and finding more good employees locally. But one of our goals was to create jobs in the Grays Harbor community where we grew up, so we went ahead. And the venture capitalist who had expressed his reservations about our ability to attract quality employees became an investor as well. The good news is, our fears about finding good employees were unfounded.