Business View - December 2014 113
By Michael W. Rollins
President, Austin Chamber of Commerce
There is a popular consensus these days about Austin,
Texas as a leader in creating jobs, fostering business-
es and nurturing a high quality of life. Perhaps that’s
why we welcome more than 110 new people to the re-
gion every day. In the first eight months of 2014 alone,
there were 41 company relocations to Austin that cre-
ated 4,730 jobs and 39 Austin businesses that ex-
panded operations – creating 2,303 jobs – including
athenahealth, Box, Charles Schwab, Websense and
many others.
More than solely an impressive economic engine, in
recent years Austin has developed a progressive plat-
form around building a world-class workforce through
talent development initiatives, improving local schools,
new technical certification programs and increasing
direct-to-college enrollment which have created one of
the most educated workforces in the country, with 41
percent of adults holding at least a bachelor’s degree,
compared with 29 percent nationally. These programs
are driven by the business community and run by the
Austin Chamber of Commerce to make Austin a mag-
net for the best and brightest people in the world, peo-
ple who want to bring their passion, ideas and plans
here to grow.
There is also a proud legacy in Austin of fostering
homegrown businesses – from technology giant Dell
to fast-growing innovator in the spirits industry Deep
Eddy Vodka. Austin achieved early success in the
1980s and 1990s as an outpost for manufacturing
operations, notably IBM, Texas Instruments, Motorola
and Advanced Micro Devices. From there, Austin set
forth on a committed basis to build upon its high-tech
company cluster.
The early 2000s brought challenging economic times,
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