Mining Coal Country for Tech Workers

Economics, Politics Send Contractors Into Southwest Virginia

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.

Russell County Administrator Jim Gillespie helped lure government contractor CGI-AMS, which plans to hire 300 software engineers for its new tech center.

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.

Along with cutting their costs, the companies saw in the coalfields of Southwest Virginia a way to improve their chances of winning state contracts, and — in the case of CGI-AMS — a way to turn the promise of jobs into millions of dollars in government concessions.

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/01/AR2006010101034.html?sub=AR