(Host) In the midst of a shaky economy these days, there is at least one bright spot. Some high tech companies in Vermont are hiring.
And, as VPR’s Lynne McCrea reports, some of those companies will be at a job fair this weekend, in search of new employees.
(McCrea) Steve Arms walks past rows of empty work spaces at his newly expanded Williston company.
(Arms) "There are some empty cubes – and the goal is to fill them up."
(McCrea) Arms is the founder and president of MicroStrain, which has been growing by nearly 40% a year for the last five years.
The company designs and manufactures wireless sensors that can monitor the performance of equipment and machines.
In a testing room, Arms shows how his product might measure the performance of a helicopter…
(Arms) "We’re designing wireless sensors that monitor the aircraft’s structure…"
(McCrea) Not all high tech companies are experiencing such growth. The Department of Labor says over the last five years, jobs have declined by nearly 30 percent in traditional high tech industries, such as the semi-conductor business. But software occupations have grown by 6%. And jobs in systems design and development have grown by 20 percent.
Steve Arms says that finding qualified people for his growing company has gotten easier, as local colleges and universities have bolstered their programs in high tech fields. But he wouldn’t call Vermont a ‘hotbed’ of the high tech industry – not yet, anyway.
(Arms) "I think there’s plenty of opportunity for Vermont to become a hotbed. For me, it’s the local schools that make the biggest difference. If there’s great talent coming out of the local colleges and universities it will create a pool of resources that will support technology here in the future."
(McCrea) Champlain College hopes to contribute to that ‘pool of resources’ with its Emergent Media Center, which had an opening celebration this week. The center is focused on electronic games and social media in creating what it calls powerful learning tools.
Heather Kelley is the creative director of a game project that’s aimed at ending violence against women in developing countries. She says, for her, Vermont seems to be in a ‘sweet spot’ – with jobs that combine high-level technical skills and strong social values.
(Kelley) "There are a lot of people interested in this area of games that are talking about different social values, or educational purposes// or moral or artistic issues… And that, because the center is focused on projects like that, that we’ll see a lot interest in bringing projects here, and the center will grow."
(McCrea) One step in fostering the industry is "Vermont 3.0: a Creative Technology Career Jam". The job fair brings together a wide variety of employers and people who work in the field, with job hunters looking to network and explore careers in high tech.
Whether those careers will be immune to a continuing economic downturn is impossible to know. But in the view of Steve Arms, of MicroStrain, the best defense is to continue to develop the next best thing.
(Arms) "The only constant is change. So embrace that, be a part of that, and let’s move on."
(McCrea) For VPR news, I’m Lynne McCrea.
(Host) The Vermont 3.0 career jam takes place all day this Saturday at Champlain College. For more information, go to VPR.net.