WP: Mining coal country for tech workers (re: Mark Warner)

[billr]

Mining Coal Country for Tech Workers
Economics, Politics Send Contractors Into Southwest Virginia

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 2, 2006; Page A01

LEBANON, Va. -- In this town of 3,300 people, cow pastures encase the local high school, churches outnumber nightclubs 14 to zero and the unemployment rate is almost twice as high as the rest of the state.

This is where government contractors CGI-AMS Inc. and Northrop Grumman Corp. will in the next few months start building multimillion-dollar technology centers and hire hundreds of software engineers at salaries far above the region's average, bringing a taste of Washington's lucrative tech sector to a coal country enclave.

How the companies came to build here is a tale of the economic factors shaping Northern Virginia -- towering home prices and nightmare commutes that are making it hard to hire new workers at reasonable wages. But it's also a tale of Virginia politics and the potential boost that outgoing Gov. Mark R. Warner's ambitions for this part of the state could give a presidential bid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/01/AR2006010101034.html