Among Utah’s legislative strategies for growing the economy, the long-running Engineering Initiative stands out as an unqualified success.
Now emulated by more than a dozen states, Utah’s initiative, which appropriates funding to grow engineering and computer science programs, has increased the number of graduates that the Utah System of Higher Education turns out from 1,375 when the Initiative began to 3,283 last year.
How did it start? Back in 2000, Utah was exporting engineering talent to states like California and Washington, where high tech was growing. Gov. Michael Leavitt and I met at Adobe headquarters to talk about how to reverse the “brain drain” and attract industry investment in Utah.