Wyoming's First Altium Service Bureau
Wyoming has always been a state to lead the nation. We were the first state to give women the right to vote, and the first state to have women serve on a jury. We’re home to the first National Park and the nation’s first National Monument. Among industries, we’ve been a leader in mining coal and raising livestock. Among other resources, we’re known for mining petroleum and natural gas, and more recently harvesting wind energy. In a large state with so many resources, it’s no surprise that our economy has been driven by the minerals that lie within our border.
How does this relate to technology?
In some ways, it doesn’t. Wyoming’s history of mining minerals made us known for our boom and bust economy. Miners arrived to Wyoming as our minerals were in demand, and they fled as demand declined. Unlike mining, modern skills that thrive in the tech hubs of the world — programming, engineering, and design — are a foundation to many growing industries that are not boom or bust. Industries such as information technologies, silicon manufacturing, blockchain, IoT, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are unique in that once planted, there’s a good chance that they’ll stay.
There are a lot of moving pieces to creating a healthy ecosystem for high-tech industries. Entrepreneurs, education, business incubators, and engineers are among the more obvious pieces. At the surface it’s easy to see our state’s beautiful landscapes, year-round outdoor activities, low cost of living, and no corporate taxation — and ask, why don’t we have more technology companies here in Wyoming? But a deeper look reminds us that there’s an exodus of youth jumping ship in pursuit of job opportunities.
Talk to most soon-to-be graduates of the University of Wyoming and you’ll hear a common theme. Our students want to stay, but where will they find jobs?
Laramie, Wyoming
There are few big tech names here already. Perhaps our most notable is the Microsoft Cheyenne Data Center, opened in 2013. There are many smaller technology firms here too, some of which have stood the test of time. Other businesses have been sold — some of which stayed in Wyoming for a while, others of which have been moved off the local map either in pieces or as a whole. But a lot of the names behind the businesses are still here — thinking, creating, and planting in the fertile soil they know well.
Just an hour or two away, the Front Range of Colorado is a technology belt with already established businesses, arts, and an international airport. With elements like these, there’s no question why Colorado’s growth has been explosive in recent the years. But which came first? Certainly the airport and businesses weren’t built before the people arrived.
In Wyoming, paving the way toward a technology-friendly ecosystem feels like a chicken-or-egg problem. Will the people plant their roots here without businesses in place to hire them? Will the businesses invest in real estate without a sufficient supply of workers to fill the jobs? Will towns emphasize the arts to create an environment where both people and businesses can thrive?
We don’t know. But we believe the future of technology in Wyoming is bright. And we’re glad to be here as a part of it.
Today, our staff is small, and our hearts are big. We are the Engineering Design Group, LLC and we’re based here in the heart of Laramie, in the backyard of the University of Wyoming. We believe that there’s something special here in Wyoming, and that’s why we placed another seed into the soil: We’re proud to be the first of Altium's Service Bureaus here in the Equality State. We wouldn’t want to be designing circuit boards anywhere else.