Saturday; May 28, 2005
City Recognized for Engineer, Scientist Base
By Staff Reports Huntsville Times

Magazine gives Huntsville image a boost, official says

A national magazine dedicated to community evaluations for company expansion has ranked the Huntsville metro area No. 2 nationally per capita for scientists and engineers.

Expansion Management magazine announced the results this week. Huntsville placed second in the category behind Kennewick-Richland-Pasco, Wash., known as the Tri-Cities area in southeast Washington state. The area is host to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a nuclear power plant and a host of engineering and government contractors.

Brian Hilson, president of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, said the recognition is further evidence of Huntsville's "prominence as a technology based community."

"Increasingly we're being ranked nationally among the various technology cities," Hilson said. "And as companies and individuals look at doing business and living here, it helps us in our marketing program to be among the highest-ranked communities in the country."

Hilson said Huntsville and Madison County began five decades ago working to establish itself as an advanced technology community and the area's current growth plan continues to emphasize development of technology and engineering careers.

Expansion Management ranks the combined San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, Calif., communities, basically Silicon Valley, in third place. Boulder, Colo., and Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Cape Canaveral, Fla., round out the top 5.
Hilson said the ranking was a nice complement to Salary.com's report this week ranking Huntsville second nationally for salary value, measuring cost-of-living against income.

"This comes at a time that is very helpful to our marketing efforts and adds credibility to our message for those we're already working with," Hilson said.