Huntsville Among Best for High Tech Growth
Huntsville is recognized as one of the country's best locations for High-Tech Growth according to AreaDevelopment.com. Read what Area Development has to say about our fair city:Most emerging hot-tech cities have a niche, and Huntsville's reputation as the "Rocket City" highlights its deep roots in the defense and aerospace industry. More than 300 defense and aerospace engineering and technology companies are located here, and more than 50 percent of the jobs in Huntsville/Madison County are related to those industries.
"Huntsville has a great combination of entrepreneurial spirit and history of technical innovation coupled with business-savvy community leaders. This makes it a great place to grow a business," says Paul Gierow, president of GATR Technologies in Huntsville. The company, which was founded in Huntsville in 2004, develops inflatable satellite communication antennas and systems that can be quickly deployed for high-bandwidth communications in remote, hard-to-reach areas.Named the "The New Federal City" by Government Executive magazine, with some 32,550 federal jobs based in Huntsville, the region is home to the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army's Redstone Arsenal. With a population of more than 400,000, Huntsville plays a key role in the U.S. Army's technology development programs.
However, Huntsville's high-tech growth is not limited to defense and aerospace. According to TechAmerica, Huntsville has one of the highest concentrations of high-tech workers in the nation — across all disciplines. Since 2004, more than 18,440 jobs from expanding companies have been created, with more than $1.5 billion in capital investment. The Huntsville region boasts nine colleges and universities, including UA-Huntsville, a national research university.
Cummings Research Park (CRP), the nation's second-largest R&D park, is located outside Redstone Arsenal and employs more than 25,000 people. The park, founded in 1962, encompasses 3,843 acres and includes more than 11.5 million square feet of office space. A recent growth engine to the CRP has been the expansion of the biotech industry with the $130 million, 270,000-square-foot Hudson-Alpha Institute. The institute, which is 100 percent occupied, includes 12 biotech companies and a nonprofit research center.