To the ends of the Earth.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: The hiring of foreign-born workers in Colorado

HIGH-TECH COMPANIES NEED HIGHLY SKILLED WORKERS, AND THEY'LL SCOUR THE GLOBE TO GET THEM.

Colorado companies' human resources departments struggle to keep up with the high-tech boom, and the enormous demand for experienced researchers and technical workers.

That's why businesses here go to the ends of the earth for qualified employees.

"You've got a boom, and you don't have anyone to fuel it," said Laura Lichter, principal at Lichter & Associates, an immigration law firm with Boulder and Denver offices.

Foreign-born employees and entrepreneurs alike have been a key to Colorado's economic expansion. The state "is considered a destination location for many travelers, and many career-seekers, as well," said Jay Junekun Choi, an attorney specializing in business immigration at the Englewood-based law firm Burns, Figa, & Will. "I see (foreign-born labor's economic) contribution in an exponential way."

Choi noted that the 30,000 native Koreans who call the Front Range home own roughly 2,500 businesses, a statistic he termed "astonishingly high." He also pointed to the high involvement of foreign-born workers in product development. "Combining those two areas, there is significant impact," he said.

But importing talent is no simple task. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service's paperwork glut can stall the process for months; legal fees increase the cost of hiring. "You should know that business people know that human resources is not the place you look to as a profit center in a business," said Robert Heiserman, an immigration attorney with offices in Denver and Aspen.

Skilled foreign-born workers generally work in the United States while holding an H-1B visa, which usually requires a year-long application process. "Unless you are a Nobel Prize winner of some kind, you have to come up with labor certification," Lichter said. Certification, she said, means submitting a job description to the INS, followed by an attempt to hire a U.S. citizen for the position. If no citizen is found, the company is permitted to look elsewhere.

Most visas are available based on quotas unique to each country. This can lead to a long wait for applicants from such oversubscribed nations as India and China.

"There's an abundance of talented individuals from overseas," noted Hemal Jhaveri, Indian-born CEO, chairman and founder of Englewood-based SofTec Solutions Inc., a database consulting firm.

Jhaveri, a green card holder since 1987, recently applied for...