Wyoming economic picture looking up

Wyoming has lagged behind Colorado’s explosive economic growth over the past decade, but Equality State economic-development leaders believe good things are in store for Wyoming as the century turns.

While economic indicators remain mixed, the state’s economy appears to be moving forward again, with creation of new jobs and increases in per capita personal income and new advances in what Gov. Jim Geringer calls the “age of the new economy.”

“Wyoming’s economic outlook is for steady growth and measured optimism,” Geringer said in his budget message to state legislators. “Recent economic indicators show that personal income growth and employment growth are strong and will continue to be so.”

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In fact, Wyoming’s per capita income increased by 5.9 percent over the last year, and from October 1998 to October 1999, nearly 2,500 new jobs were created, many in foundation industries or new-economy industries that are the state’s top targets. State sales-tax revenues totaled a record $387 million in fiscal year 1999, a 5.3 percent increase over the previous year.

While some would characterize Wyoming’s rebound as modest, it is spread across the state’s economy — from an energy industry mired in near-record low prices just a year ago to a growing manufacturing sector to new economy jobs in telecommunications and business services.

A boom in coal-bed methane and natural gas, new pipelines and prospects for new electric generating plants are helping push the rebound, while the state’s other foundation industries — tourism and agriculture — also are showing improvement.

“The economy is moving in the right direction,´ said John Reardon, chief executive officer of the Wyoming Business Council, the state’s economic-development arm.

“This past year was a bellwether year for us,” he added. “Wyoming engaged in the national economy, and all 12 business sectors in the state were in positive territory this past quarter. It is a very positive story.”

That’s a big improvement from the negative numbers recorded across the state in most sectors during much of the 1990s. Wyoming, Reardon said, is moving from being near last in most economic-development categories to being in the top 10 in many in terms of percentage increases and improvement.

Geringer, who has made technology a dominant theme of his five years in office, continues to stress its importance as a tool in helping Wyoming diversify from its traditional, natural resource-based economy to new knowledge-based businesses. But he also is stressing the importance of a technology-proficient work force.

“Access to cutting-edge research, venture capital, sophisticated communications networks and to pools of highly skilled workers will be standard requirements to sustain and grow businesses throughout the state,” the governor said.

“While our national economy will continue to need Wyoming’s ample supply of energy and raw materials, our goals for real wage growth and economic development in Wyoming will require a heavy investment in human resources, particularly in our youth,” he said.

Responsibility for developing Wyoming’s economy rests primarily with the 1 1/2-year-old Business Council, a public-private entity with a state budget appropriation that is run like a private corporation, with a 15-member board of directors made up of private-sector business executives.

The council has formed strategic alliances and partnerships with virtually every public and private group with a stake in economic development. Partners include local economic-development groups, chambers of commerce, municipalities, the University of Wyoming, and major trade associations, such as the Wyoming Mining Association and the Wyoming Business Alliance.

Starting in Casper and Cheyenne, the economic recovery spread to other cities and in the year 2000 should be felt in most of Wyoming’s 97 communities, Reardon advised legislators this past fall.

“As we move forward, we expect double-digit job growth in the spring through a combination of things — manufacturing, closure of a number of (prospects), the new economy continuing to expand and construction starting again,” Reardon said in an interview.

Overall, he said, the Business Council is looking for annual growth rate of 2 percent to 2.5 percent. “That seems to be the level that we can absorb” in our communities and businesses, Reardon said. “Not too fast. Nice and easy is the best way to go.”

The greatest challenge facing the state is developing — and keeping — a quality work force. That’s why both the governor and the Business Council are focusing on worker development as a major part of the state’s long-term economic-development strategy.

One of the biggest negatives in recent years has been the continued migration of young people out of the state, threatening Wyoming with a labor shortage every bit as serious as Colorado’s.

In the past, as many as two-thirds of University of Wyoming graduates left the state (and many who remained faced limited job prospects and underemployment). But according to Reardon, that statistic could be changing, too, with an aggressive new reverse migration effort.

“Now that we’ve got an economy that’s moving in the right direction, we’re turning our attention to people,” Reardon said.