Utah is back in the technology game, experts say

Utah's technology sector has a lot of strengths, but don't expect the state to become "the next Silicon Valley."

So said panelists Wednesday at a discussion regarding the next 365 days for technology in Utah.

"We're now back in the game where people are talking about us," Brad Bertoch, president and chief executive officer of business accelerator The Wayne Brown Institute, said during the luncheon discussion presented by Vanguard Media Group. "People forget that in 1992 . . . there were three places in the world for software to come from: Redmond (Wash.), Silicon Valley and the Wasatch Front. By 2000, we were nowhere. We were gone. And in the last five years, we have made a stellar comeback."

But Jeff Edwards, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Utah, suggested Utah's strengths may be best exploited specifically rather than generally.

"I think we can be successful in niches," he said. "I get disturbed by people who talk about Utah becoming a new Silicon Valley. It ain't happening any time soon, guys."

Edwards and the other panelists said security software, home automation systems and life sciences (including personalized medicine) are among industries in which Utah can be the leader.

"Personally, I'd like to see us pursue a niching strategy where we're not going to be an all-seeing, all-dancing IT everything, but we're going to try to really leverage our strengths," Edwards said.

Panelists agreed on the force of Utah's tech sector, discussing various formulas indicating that each tech job leads to the creation of several other jobs. And Bertoch noted that information technology, life sciences and advanced manufacturing represent the state's largest industrial sector, accounting for one-fourth of the state's GDP despite having only 5 percent of the state's work force. Those jobs also pay well.

"It says, number one, if you want to solve the education problems of the state of Utah, create more high-technology jobs, because the efficiency of tax generation is unparalleled," Bertoch said. "You can generate a whole lot of tax revenue by creating more high-technology jobs. . . .

"The other implication is that people don't know that, so the Legislature has typically been an 'old economy' Legislature. We have very few people that know anything about technology in the Legislature, and it has only been in literally the last two years that some of the 'old economy' guys have finally said, 'Hey, this tech stuff is important.' "

That attitude is reflected at the state government level through "a new attitude and a new feel" among economic development officials about technology, plus the Legislature's funding of the Utah Science, Technology and Research, or USTAR, initiative, he said.