Quality of Life

A great place to live, work and play. Washington State is a study in contrasts. Formed by volcanic upheaval and born out of a fierce, independent pioneer spirit, the state offers its residents endless opportunities. Indeed, Washington is not only the ideal place to build a business or career, but it’s a great place to [...]

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Highly Skilled Workforce

Talented, educated and driven. It’s no accident that Washington State offers employers a superbly educated and trained workforce. It’s in our nature. People in the Northwest thrive on learning. In fact, approximately 90% are high school graduates (compared to 75% nationally) and three-fourths of the students at the state’s largest university call Washington home after [...]

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Culture of Innovation

Doing the impossible every day. Forbes magazine recently named the Seattle area the #1 region for technology job growth. You don’t have to tell companies like Amazon, Boeing, Google and Microsoft that. These leaders in their respective industries already know that Washington State has a rich tradition of innovation, from ushering in the dawn of [...]

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Centralized Export Hub

Expand your market overseas. Washington State businesses understand the power of tapping overseas markets. Last year, $75.5 billion in goods were shipped worldwide by 8,400+ companies. Not surprising, given that the state’s proximity, geography and exports know-how make it the ideal place to set up an export business. While Washington is known worldwide for its [...]

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Low Cost Energy

Abundant, renewable and inexpensive. If your business needs lots of power, you’ll love Washington State. Low cost energy is one of the many reasons why companies like BMW and Amazon Web Services have located their operations here. We offer businesses the largest coordinated hydroelectric system in the world. Nearly 75% of our power is derived [...]

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Business Spotlight

Seattle’s viaduct tunnel creating jobs in Pierce County.

FPS-Encon Precast plant, which had seven manufacturing workers in September, now employs 110, and is looking for 30 to 50 more general laborers and welders. The joint venture that expanded the plant in the span of just a few months has spent some $25 million creating buildings and installing a sophisticated assembly line to produce [...]

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Washington state No. 1 in software publishing jobs, ranks third in tech wages

According to the annual Cyberstates report from the TechAmerica foundation, tech workers in Washington state earned an average annual wage of $110,200. This places Washington in third place in terms of tech wages behind California ($123,900) and Massachusetts ($116,000). It’s also up from 2011 when Washington tech workers on average earned $105,500. Nationally, the tech [...]

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City leaders help Stanwood, WA, land factory and 62 jobs!

When you think of electrical panel and control systems manufacturing, you probably wouldn’t put Stanwood very high on a list of likely contenders. But the city is home to Washington’s largest such business, Process Solutions. Why Stanwood? It doesn’t have a reputation for tech manufacturing as Arlington, Mukilteo and Bothell do. But it does have [...]

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Washington colleges debut 5-year engineering program for low-income students.

You typically hear the term “redshirt” for collegiate athletics. It’s a title given to athletes who receive an extra year of eligibility on the field because of injury or other reasons. But now it’s coming to the classroom, as the University of Washington and Washington State University are developing an “academic redshirt” program that will [...]

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Governor Inslee’s strategy to land the 777X.

Gov. Jay Inslee announced a revised aerospace strategy that aims to convince the Boeing Co. to design and build the 777X in Washington. If successful, the initiative would also boost 1,256 aerospace-related companies in the state that are suppliers to Boeing, the governor said. The 777X is the code name for the next generation of [...]

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In the News…

Seattle ranks #4 as startup hub worldwide

: Click on chart to see larger version.

We’re honored by the announcement by Startup Genome that Seattle is the fourth best place to start a company. While we’d like to be first, of course, we have to say that we’re in awfully good company, since this was a global ranking. We are just behind Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv and Los Angeles, but ahead of the Big Apple and Bean Town.

This is even more notable since Seattle moved up from 13^th a year ago. The city ranked high in talent, funding, support and entrepreneurial mindset. Startup Genome has compiled data on more than 50,000 startups around the world and this project is the first attempt to provide an in-depth look at entrepreneurialism on a global scale.

The analysis was produced in cooperation with UC Berkley, Stanford and Telefonica Digital, covering a range of topics that are believed to be characteristic of startup ecosystems: Startup Output, Funding, Company Performance, Talent, Support Infrastructure, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Trendsetting Tendencies and Ecosystem Differentiation.

See the first part of the 160-page report.