The news is pretty bad this week.  A lot of doom and gloom in the national headlines, especially with unemployment rates still in double-digits, and with employers sitting tight with no new hires.  There is however, some great news coming out of the Triad Region this week and we can only get excited about where we are headed in the short-term.

The first announcement was a big one – Caterpillar, Inc announced they would bring a significant manufacturing operation to Winston Salem. This represents 392 full-time jobs with an average salary of $36,000 per year plus benefits.  This is a $426 million dollar investment that will also create some good construction jobs to build their facility – a 850,000 square foot facility that will be used to build parts for their large mining trucks.

The second announcement was also in Winston Salem.  IMG Worldwide, a global sports entertainment and media company, announced it will acquire ISP Sports, a college media rights company based in downtown Winston Salem.  The new partnership will be called IMG College and will remain in Winston Salem, along with creating approximately 25 more jobs.  ISP’s clients represent the Colleges/Universities of Wake Forest, Georgia, Duke, South Carolina, Georgia Tech, Elon, and Virginia Tech.

The Triad Region already has experienced recent employment announcements from Honda Jet, Fed Ex, and Precor, to name a few.  After seeing all of these recent announcements, one can only get excited about our next few years. 

See, the economic news isn’t so bad.