Michael O. Leavitt.

• Position: Economic development in Utah - Brief Article

Now in his third term, Gov. Mike Leavitt says that if a shrewd investor looked at states as IPOs, he or she would want to buy Utah.

This is a state that has been undervalued far too long. If we chart Utah as a stock, in 1985 we would have been low. But since then, we've been rising steadily to a market cap in 1995 with a safe, slower incline," he says. "We have been making continued improvement year by year. But like a jet plane, we are now seeking the right altitude."

Leavitt hopes to partially accomplish this with the Utah-Silicon Valley Alliance, an initiative to create partnerships between Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Utah business resources. The alliance will accelerate Utah's emergence as a technology center and benefit Silicon Valley companies struggling to keep up employment as they produce 1,400 new companies a year.

"They're like a pot boiling over the top," says Leavitt. "They can't recruit or produce enough good people to fill positions. We become a grow-out location for them, which creates synergy between entrepreneurs living here, which creates entrepreneurial capital. A rising tide lifts all boats."

Leavitt predicts that in the next 15 years Utah will become a digital state -- a high-capacity, high-speed bandwidth of technological growth. He sees at least two segments of rural Utah emerging economically; that is, larger areas like Washington and Cache counties, with universities, and medium areas like Tremonton and Richfield with some industry and freeway access. "We still have to figure out what to do with the third area, the small, isolated sectors like Panguitch and Duchesne. No one really knows what to do there."

The Olympics is high on the governor's list of important Utah happenings. "When a Top 100 list of significant events of the 21st century is created...