While Philadelphia grows its biotech cluster, Pittsburgh has literally set up a greenhouse to grow the companies doing business in the digital age. The Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse (PDG) has the goal of creating 1,500 microelectronics chip-design firms.

Gov. Tom Ridge (center) sees the laboratory in action at Merck & Co.
in Montgomery County. Merck is expanding by 3,000 jobs in the Philadelphia area.

      "Pittsburgh has always been seen as a location for the chip-design industry, but with the announcement last July of the establishment of the Sony Electronics Semiconductor Design Center, the area will now be seen by the industry as a natural location to house design centers," says Tunnell. "Other chip designers are taking notice of the Sony announcement. As a result, Pittsburgh is well on its way to reaching 1,500 chip-design jobs by 2005. The wages for these jobs are typically $50,000 to more than $100,000 per year. The PDG plays a pivotal role in talent recruitment."
      In addition to chip designers, Pittsburgh attracts a bevy of information technology talent. On May 1, Gov. Ridge announced that Laurel Networks, a developer of high-capacity network-routing systems, planned to open a new headquarters to support its expansion in Pittsburgh and create 170 new jobs over the next few years.

Gov. Ridge (far right) gets a tour of The Vanguard Group's corporate headquarters in Malvern, Pa. The company is planning a 6,000-employee expansion in the near future.

      "Pittsburgh's business climate, combined with the support of Gov. Ridge and his economic development team, is helping to lift Laurel Networks onto the product-development fast track," says Atul Bansal, CEO for Laurel. "Since we've partnered with the Commonwealth, our expansion has progressed nicely. Our staff is growing, we've secured additional funding, and now we've opened our new headquarters in a premier Pittsburgh corporate center."
      The new 30,000-sq.-ft. (2,790-sq.-m.) headquarters on the campus of the Omega Corporate Center will house the company's offices, laboratories and customer briefing center. It will also serve as the center for design, development and prototyping of Laurel's networking products.

Gov. Ridge tours the Carnegie Science Center
for the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse event.

      The governor also announced on April 18 that eSpotMarket, a business-to-business e-commerce company, would expand its operation by 140 workers in Pittsburgh. Modeled after the NASDAQ and the commodities markets, eSpotMarket's custom-built exchange features real-time pricing via a Web-based browser. The exchange supports trading for commodity-like products such as computer peripherals and office supplies.
      "Our efforts are paying off with recognition, from both private industry and government, that we have a solution that works and has tremendous growth potential," says Tom Hayes, CEO of eSpotMarket. "We're delighted to work with Gov. Ridge and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to ensure eSpotMarket's expansion, and to strengthen the state's standing as a leader in fostering new technology."