Creating jobs and filling them.

• Position: REGIONAL REPORT

With unemployment rates generally lower on the Eastern Plains than in much of Colorado, finding employees can be a challenge, Stambaugh says. So he recruited his nine full-time Otero County employees from other jobs.

"It is difficult for companies to look beyond population numbers," notes Joe Kiely, assistant town manager in Limon, population 1,857. "There is always worry, 'Where are we going to get our employees?' But we continue to fill the jobs that are created in this community."

Rick Robbins, CEO of Colorado Mills oil seed processing facility in Lamar, says his 38 full-time employees are a mix of locals, "boomerangs,"--former locals who moved back--and Front Range...