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Area Spotlights

April 5, 2012

Barrier Removal

Dirt moving continues on a large scale near the southern New Mexico community of Santa Teresa. Here, seven miles (11 km.) from the Mexican border and within shouting distance of El Paso, is the beginning of Union Pacific’s colossal new rail facility.

March 27, 2012

Good Medicine

Life sciences, logistics among sectors showing vitality.

March 21, 2012

Takeoff Velocity

The aerospace industry has had a major presence in the Rockford, Ill., region for many decades, but it was only a few years ago that the industry came to the realization that a major cluster had developed.

March 14, 2012

California Recovery Strong, if Uneven

Last year unemployment in California fell to the lowest level since 2009, as companies put 240,300 people to work, leading the nation in job growth.

March 7, 2012

‘The Box That Must Be Checked’

As this issue went to press in February, site selectors in the U.S. and globally were busy recasting their lists of finalist locations for manufacturing projects to include Indiana. The state may well have ranked high on some of those lists already — its business climate is considered robust by many evaluators of Midwest states, given its record of fiscal conservatism that includes a predictable and competitive tax structure among other measures.
But becoming the 23rd right-to-work state has energized Hoosier State efforts to escape the stigma, or at least perception, of Midwestern locations being less than business friendly to companies hoping to cultivate a work force free of union requirements their workers don’t embrace.

February 22, 2012

‘Attractive Jurisdictions’

If North Dakota’s booming economy and 3.5-percent unemployment rate is any indication, there is prosperity to be mined in domestic energy production, and the rest of the Central Plains states are on the brink of realizing some of that prosperity. Much will depend on where the political football that is the Keystone XL pipeline project lands in the coming weeks as federal approval of the project rides the fortunes of pending legislation.

February 22, 2012

New Wave

Silicon carbide in Starkville. Solar industry components in Senatobia, Grenada and Hattiesburg. Mission support for Lockheed in Clinton. Advanced composites for GE in Ellisville. Process equipment in Natchez. Biofuels from Columbus to Tupelo and beyond.

February 22, 2012

Campus Quarters

A Chinese solar company has big plans for a former IBM R&D facility. Linuo Solar Group expects to start shining new light in 2012 into the long-vacant IBM West Campus in East Fishkill, N.Y

February 15, 2012

The Common Denominator Is Jobs

A national laboratory expansion and a new yogurt manufacturing project will deliver significant economic impact to their cities and to Idaho. Several thousand jobs are being attributed to work now getting under way at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls, the centerpiece of which is a new, $50-million, 148,000-sq.-ft. (13,750-sq.-m.) research and education laboratory.

February 8, 2012

Taming the Wild West

Can the land of the wild, wild West become the next high-tech haven of choice? It can if more executives follow the example of Kent Holliday, the founder of Eleutian Technology in Cody, Wyo. The world's largest network of certified instructors who teach English as a second language, Eleutian recently made its home in the town.