Utah officials heralded a major investment by software company Adobe Systems Inc. as a sign that a state that produces many early computer innovations is finally amassing jobs, talent and Fortune 500 operations instead of exporting startups through corporate mergers.
“This is a watershed moment for Utah,” said Spencer P. Eccles, executive director of Gov. Gary Herbert’s economic development office and the son of a prominent Utah banker.
“We’ll look back at this as a real tipping point,” added Jeff Edwards, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, which recruits major companies.
Herbert seized on Adobe’s announcement Thursday that it will build a $100 million campus and add 1,000 jobs to brag that Utah is leading the nation’s economic recovery. Other recent arrivals are Twitter Inc. and eBay Inc., which plan to build huge data centers in Utah, video game maker Electronic Arts Inc., and Walt Disney Co.’s video-game unit, Disney Interactive.
The California-based companies say they are looking to Utah for its ready supply of young, tech-savvy workers, and its lower business and living costs. Quality of living also is a factor, say executives, who have a name for Utah — Silicon Slopes — that invokes nine ski resorts within an hour’s drive of Salt Lake City. Utah has hundreds of technology companies, mostly small ones in need of bigger partners.
“Utah is at the cutting edge of economic growth and expansion. We’re starting to come out of the recession,” Herbert boasted Thursday alongside Adobe executives at the Utah Capitol. “Utah is not just the place you want to be. It’s the place you need to be.”
The Republican governor is running in a special November election to fill out the term of former Gov. Jon Huntsman, who left to become President Barack Obama’s ambassador to China. Huntsman, a progressive Republican, spent…