Welcome to boomtown.

• Author: LAINSON, SUZANNE
• Position: Colorado Springs, Colorado is home to thriving high technology industry - Brief Article

With Intel scheduled to start operations in Colorado Springs soon, I thought I'd turn my attention to that booming tech town. Consider:

* Colorado Springs has the sixth-highest concentration of software workers in the nation, ahead of Austin and Boston, which are ninth and 10th respectively. (Boulder/Longmont is first and Denver 11th.)

* Last November, Business Start-Ups magazine listed the Springs as the second-best city in the country for high-tech start-ups, based on economic analysis done by Dun & Bradstreet.

* In May, Forbes ranked Colorado Springs as the nation's 10th-best metropolitan economy (Boulder-Longmont was fourth, beating the Springs in salary growth but lagging behind in job growth).

* Several years ago, Electronic Business Today magazine picked the Springs as one of the top 20 places in the country to locate a high-tech manufacturing plant.

If you didn't know any of this, that's understandable. The Springs boom hasn't been a big story in the state business press. Is this a problem? Not according to Rocky Scott, president of the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corporation. "Given that we have the high-volume, high-quality activity that we do, there is no reason for us to cast a wide net," Scott says.

Even though the EDC doesn't advertise, Colorado Springs is well-known among the people who count most: site location specialists. "If you do your homework and look around the country and ask, 'Where do I find an existing concentration of technology?' Colorado Springs pops up," Scott says. "And when you apply screens for cost of living and cost of housing, Colorado Springs rises to the top of the list."

Intel is a good example of an outside company that happily came to town. "Intel has viewed Colorado Springs as an attractive site for some time," said Todd Meeter, Intel's site services manager. "The combination of the availability of the Rockwell site (a chip manufacturing plant that became available for purchase) and market conditions put us over the top on the decision."

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