Don’t compare it to California’s Silicon Valley or North Carolina’s neighboring studio triangle; however, Anderson County is an incubator for scientific and generation businesses.
Taxes, zoning, a longer salary and the ability to own a home after school are key points in Anderson’s boom.
“You have tons of talent,” said Dick Pace, owner and senior scientist at Parimer Scientific. “The region is competitive, with smart schools bringing out the most productive talent. “
Like Pace, many CEOs and business leaders, when they entered the workforce, can locate this type of professional work. So they created companies.
This is helping Anderson County obtain and retain the high-level skill required for highly skilled jobs.
Within Little Ole’ Anderson there is generation science and engineering that:
“If you’re looking for talent, place it where other people need to live,” Pace said.
Growing up in the northern component of the state, Pace struggled with a task after earning a degree in biomolecular engineering from Clemson University.
After applying for a start-up and a few other companies, he retired early and started his own chemical compounds engineering company.
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One of his many projects concerned an antibody test for the COVID-19 vaccine, work that was done by six staff scientists who graduated from universities in the northern part of the state.
Two of its workers are from Wisconsin and Georgia.
The rest, 80% of Parimer Scientific’s employees, are from the northern region of the state and here.
“We are consistently one of the 10 fastest developing areas,” Pace said. “That’s why I need this position to be here and in Mississippi. “
Four years ago, Pace brought his to Anderson County because Greenville County would have classified it as a commercial zoning site.
He said Anderson County is used to businesses like his and is more tech-friendly and has little zoning in the county.
Poly-Med in Anderson has been around for about 27 years and has been for years one of the few medical device brands in the region. They specialize in the design of bioabsorbable fitness products.
His company holds 140 U. S. patents, adding one that the dots dissolve on human skin.
“Anderson has low taxes, a low burden of living, housing and land at a moderate value in other parts of the country,” said Dave Shalaby, CEO of Poly-Med. “It’s much more successful to start in this component of the country, unlike Palo Alto.
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He has noticed that the trajectory of the region has changed during his decades in the county, other people with expanding skills are coming to the region and can now be recruited, he said.
Of Poly-Med’s 170 employees, about 130 come from Clemson University and the University of South Carolina, an indication of the importance of keeping South Carolina graduates local.
Seattle’s dark but electric tech hub has noticed one of them leaving the northwest for the northern state of South Carolina.
Sync. MD CEO Eugene Luskin resigned from his position at Microsoft in January 2016 over its smart device app, which serves as a virtual briefcase for non-public medical records.
During a conversation with Anderson in 2021, Luskin met with others on the network and tried to understand the realities of offering a healthcare app.
“At the end of this week, I told my wife to look elsewhere,” Luskin said. “We discovered our new home. “
Luskin and his wife had Dallas or Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, but his time here and a previous relationship with U. S. Senator Jeff Duncan helped facilitate Luskin’s jump to Anderson County.
Anderson is a and rapidly developing region in the upstate, Duncan said in an email to the Independent Mail. “It’s no wonder that tech startups and scientific corporations are turning to this field. “
Luskin said that if he had been in Seattle, he wouldn’t have had the same opportunities. He said those come with the metropolitan cities near Atlanta and Charlotte and are at the beginning of a new curve in the industry as well as the quality of local talent.
“If you come here and embrace local values and the values of other people here,” Luskin said. “They know you and greet you with open arms. “
Anderson County is pushing local businesses to inspire high-skilled jobs and prevent their skills from leaving the area, said Burris Nelson, Anderson County’s director of economic development.
The purpose is to recruit technology, science, and medical corporations that offer domain workers an hourly wage above the county average. The regional average salary is $22. 34 in May 2020, according to the most recent detailed study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We’re shy about how we can make things look good for those companies,” Nelson said.
It is a precedent to have the opportunity for those with two- and four-year degrees to have a wonderful task in the county.
“The only explanation for why they need to leave is if necessary,” Nelson said.
In 2009, the average of those jobs was $13. 68 per hour, and in 2022 it rose to $21. 71, which is still Greenville and away from Hilton Head, the state leader, at just $33 an hour, according to Nelson.
Salary incentives are implemented in new capital investment projects and are performance-based, Nelson said. This is an ability to keep local skill close to home, which makes a $100,000 salary for Anderson more exciting than $200,000 elsewhere.
Dick Pace of Parimer Scientific this is true.
“Any of our chemicals can double or triple in California,” he said.
The surrounding southeastern states are competing for the upstate skills pool, with other asset tax incentives and a larger market to attract that.
“We have to be competitive, that’s why we have our incentive program,” Nelson said. “I need my children and grandchildren to have jobs and opportunities in Anderson County. “
Un J. Jackson is a general reporter for the Independent Mail. Email ajackson@gannett. com with the article and the clues.