Nebraska's "team" of business advantages is led off by its world-renowned telecommunications center in Omaha, a city that has been referred to in the media as a "mecca of the burgeoning information technology services industry."
That quote is courtesy of Dr. Wiley McKinzie, dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. The city has also been dubbed a "telecommunications and computing hub" by U.S. News and World Report,(r) and one of the top 10 cities for nurturing information technology companies in the United States, according to Forbes.
So how did Omaha become such a valuable player in the telecommunications industry? It all started in the late 1940s when the U.S. government built the Strategic Air Command in Omaha to lead U.S. military operations in case of a nuclear war. The center (now called U.S. Strategic Command) required a complex telecommunications infrastructure and workers trained in telecommunications.
The Strategic Air Command ended up transforming the Omaha economy. Twenty years after it was built, the city capitalized on its telecommunications infrastructure and developed a large-enough toll-free calling industry to earn itself the title as the "1-800 Capital of the United States."
Not only did Omaha have the necessary infrastructure for telemarketing firms and reservations centers, it also had the distinct advantage of a central location, where long-distance charges were lower and the business day could be extended by calling the East Coast in the morning and the West Coast in the afternoon.
Omaha was one of the first U.S. cities to develop a fiberoptic network. Its telecommunications foundation expanded into a thriving information technology sector.
Omaha reinforced its telecommunications infrastructure with an accompanying educational system to ensure a long-range work force for the industry. The University of Nebraska's Peter Kiewit Institute, Creighton University's Joe Ricketts Center in Electronic Commerce and Database Marketing, the Creighton Institute of Information Technology Management, Bellevue University, and the Metropolitan Community College all offer programs in information technology.
Also contributing to Omaha's high-tech work force are the approximately 1,000 highly trained military personnel that retire from the U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha each year.
Today, Omaha's access to major fiberoptic networks and its favorable regulatory and business climate add to the city's advantages. The U.S. Strategic Command, which now handles weapons and nuclear alerts, is one of dozens of telecommunications operations in Omaha.
ConAgra Foods chose Omaha as the site of its new high-tech data center largely because of the city's infrastructure.
"When we considered all factors, World Communication Park in northwest Omaha was the logical location for the data center," said Ken Gerhardt, senior vice president and CEO for ConAgra. "Omaha's competitiveness in this area and the suitability of the park speak to the foresight of the city's planners."
First Data Resources (FDR), a third-party contract processor of bank card transactions, started in Omaha in 1971. Recently, the company built a new $40 million, 300,000-square-foot technology office complex and added 2,000 workers to its payroll.
It is located adjacent to the University of Nebraska's Peter Kiewit Institute of Information Science, Technology, and Engineering, and is poised to adapt to new technologies.
Among other information technology companies located in Omaha are Applied Communications, which develops software applications for financial institutions, retailers, and third-party processors of electronic transactions, and InfoUSA, which provides business and consumer marketing information and data processing services.
National attention continues to shine on Omaha's technology sector. Indeed, Omaha was profiled in the April 30, 2001, issue of Newsweek magazine. Writer C. David Kotok said of the city, "Omaha is where the blue-collar work of the information economy is done. Phones are answered, money is counted, and data are processed. Six national fiberoptic networks converge here."
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