In 1985, Mark Alldredge placed a Sunday help-wanted ad
in a major Denver newspaper. He needed a welder. Arriving at his company Monday morning
he found a line of applicants stretching around the building. From among this
wealth of talent three welders were hired that day. Times have changed: this
year similar ads, more frequently than not, attract not a single applicant.
Light industrial companies have not always benefited from Denver's
booming economy and labor shortage.
"In 1993 we began
searching for another location to produce fabricated steel products,"
Alldredge says. "We decided that a
rural community might offer the labor base we needed. Wyoming was attractive to
us due to its proximity to Colorado and we knew it offered businesses certain
advantages."
Some of these advantages are things that Wyoming does
not
have! No state income taxes, for instance --
none on individuals and none on corporations. Property taxes are one half to one
third those demanded by many states or large metropolitan areas. Wyoming has no
inventory tax, and goods produced to
go out-of-state are not taxed.
In 1994 Alldredge formed Wymanco, a limited liability
company, establishing it in northwestern Wyoming's
Thermopolis. "Thermopolis was selected
based on its solid ranching and agricultural economic base and scenic location.
We looked at utility costs, shipping costs, and the availability of our primary
inventory need, raw steel -- and in
every case costs were comparable or favorable. We've
been able to staff our new facility with qualified and exceptionally hardworking
individuals, and believe it or not, occasionally a person walks through our door
seeking employment," says Alldredge,
with a grin.
Thermopolis is the seat of Hot Springs County, a
scenically spectacular two-thousand square mile area populated by about 5,000
people -- probably outnumbered by deer
and cattle. Elk, pronghorn antelope, upland game birds, water fowl and
blue-ribbon fishing make the county an outdoors man's
Mecca. "I used to drive 16 miles to
work each day and for 10 years I hit every stoplight between home and work,"
Alldredge comments. "Thermopolis has
one stoplight, and its necessity is controversial. Honestly life improves as the
trappings required by densely populated areas diminish."
Wymanco recently purchased a shear and a brake to cut
and form sheet metal, hoping to cover financing and depreciation costs from new
work for core customers. Unexpectedly, the company was asked to fabricate trash
containers for a local waste hauler and now its "dumpster
business" has grown into a reasonable
revenue source. "The containers are
large," Alldredge points out, "and
we are competitive in our immediate geographic area because of lower
transportation costs."
Wymanco was recently awarded a contact to build
bear-proof dumpsters for Yellowstone National Park (which for a crow is about 80
miles north, though the highway mileage is 135). "If
you have a base business and some expertise,"
Alldredge notes, "there are
opportunities in rural areas that contribute to both the bottom line and the
satisfaction of running a small business."
These opportunities are not always obvious, points out
Thermopolis Economic Development Director Curt Pendergraft. "Remoteness
and a small population are definitely issues,"
he says, "but on the other hand they
have some advantages." A recent study
by PFResources, a Dallas, Texas site-selection consulting company, reports that
the 15,500 person workforce within easy commuting distance of Thermopolis
includes about 2,800 underemployed workers. Furthermore, PFResources suggests,
about 25% of these workers would take a new job for $9.13 per hour or less. The
upper 25% of the underemployed will command more than $16.00 per hour.
"A lot of people
live here because they prefer to, and stay even though the kinds of jobs they're
qualified for are scarce," Pendergraft
states. "They constitute a kind of
hidden potential for the local and regional economy."
Wyoming's
culture and government are both business-friendly," Pendergraft points out,
"and our
kids have in most cases been exposed to real work. The rural nature of the area and a relative lack of some kinds of services make
it necessary for people to learn to do things on their own."
Conversations with residents of Thermopolis and Hot
Springs County, or of surrounding counties, soon reveal that quality of life is
the great attraction. "Sure there are
a few drawbacks, but they're also
the reason we can live as we do," one
person said. "Low crime rates, good
schools, and a climate that is probably the best in Wyoming, plus all this
scenery and wildlife -- they make our
lifestyle almost unique."
"We cherish what we
have," Pendergraft says, "but
we know we need more good jobs in the area. Otherwise too many of our kids have
to leave. Many would come back in a heartbeat, if the right jobs were here."
This problem is endemic in rural areas nationwide, but
one of the reasons, Pendergraft insists, that Thermopolis is different is that
it has yet to suffer the kind of economic malformation that afflicts most areas
so well endowed scenically and recreationally as Hot Springs County.
"We're the last of the best, and we want to build a local economy that will allow us to retain some degree of
self-determination. We don't want to be taken over by people who just want to move in and lock up the country for
their own use. That's why we welcome new businesses and why we're working hard to help them. That's why we've worked to develop our infrastructure, which now includes a wireless internet service
that rivals the direct connection to a T1 I had in Colorado Springs."
Alldredge, living alongside a blue-ribbon trout stream
while he runs a profitable business, agrees. And, as he points out, Thermopolis'
only stop light is not much of a hindrance to progress. Its presence signals
opportunity as often as it does caution.
