UTAH

"This is a program with a history of producing companies and having an important impact on the state’s economy," said Jan E. Crispin, who wrote the review for the University of Utah’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. "And yet the state continues to fund it on, what I think, are these low levels."

These influences have helped give the state a reputation of being warm and welcoming to immigrants.

"[In] cities that are successful, one of the common threads is they have a unified vision that transcends political administrations,"

The UTOPIA system, short for the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency, has received a $66 million commitment from a new U.S. Department of Agriculture loan program designed to help small communities build up their telecommunications infrastructure.

The Web site designates business categories under "start up," "grow up," "move up," and "fire up."

By 2050, one in five Utah residents will be age 60 or older. Last year, only about one in 10 Utah residents was age 60 or older. Baby boomers are those born from 1946 to 1964.

"There is, I think, a time and a place for all communities to really begin to take globalization seriously," Huntsman said. "Through today’s announcement, it is proof positive that we are in fact reaching out to find the best and the brightest to run our globalization and international trade efforts."

USTAR was created by lawmakers earlier this year as a government, education and business partnership with the goal of bringing $4.9 billion in new research funding and more than 123,000 high-tech jobs into Utah over the next 30 years.

Utah has offered Allegheny Technologies Inc. as much as $3.25 million in an incentive to persuade the Pittsburgh, Pa., metals manufacturer to expand in Tooele County.

"In most of rural Utah, you don’t have a shortage of jobs. You have a shortage of people. If you look at (Department of) Workforce Services statistics, there are hundreds of jobs that they have a difficult time filling. … The crisis right now is finding people who have skills in terms (of jobs) that are already there.