ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN GEORGIA
Starting-up
in
Georgia
Keeping high-tech start-ups in Georgia means creating an environment on the state, local and university levels that encourages them to stay, according to former Georgia Department of Economic Development Commissioner Chris Cummiskey’s keynote address at the UGA Public Service and Outreach Annual Meeting in April 2013. BY ROGER NIELSEN
Business and academic leaders must find effective ways of cultivating small high-tech start-ups to complement Georgia’s large-scale job programs, Chris Cummiskey, then commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, told the UGA audience. Cummiskey challenged Georgians to nurture these entrepreneurs so that the knowledge-based jobs they create stay rooted in the Peach State instead of moving to better-known hotbeds of high-tech innovation. “The University System of Georgia and the state of Georgia have as much to offer as Boston, Palo Alto, the Research Triangle and Austin,” Cummiskey said. Too often, he observed, homegrown high-tech start-ups leave Georgia just as they are poised for big growth. “We’ve got to keep them here. They’re the highpaying jobs of the future,” he said. “The longer they stay, the more likely they’re going to stay for good.” Innovation, logistics and incentives are three of the reasons Georgia ranks among the top five states in job
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
creation, and a partnership with academic leaders is one innovative method the state can use to maintain that leadership position. Finding creative solutions to businesses’ training needs is an area in which that partnership can help fortify Georgia’s efforts to retain the start-up companies that create high-paying, knowledge-based jobs, according to Cummiskey. “We have to figure out a company’s needs and where they match the university system and get them more involved,” he said. “We have to find ways to give them the assistance they need to grow.” Cummiskey added that business leaders are responding to Georgia’s efforts to cultivate knowledge-based jobs by locating new facilities here and creating thousands of new career opportunities. General Motors in January 2013 announced plans to open an information technology center in Roswell, bringing about 1,000 jobs in fields like computer programming and financial analysis—jobs that demand skills university graduates are able to provide. A few weeks later, AirWatch, a mobility technology