State’s schools must improve, Microsoft says

BOISE – Idaho will have to improve its education system, particularly in math and science, if it wants to attract and keep high-tech companies, a Microsoft Corp. official says.

Bob Lokken, Microsoft’s senior director of office business application, said Idaho ranks so poorly in education opportunities compared with other states that highly educated job prospects shun the state out of concern their children will get second-rate classroom instruction.

“It’s hard to recruit people to move to Idaho when 38 other states, including Alabama and Mississippi, have more math and science requirements,” Lokken told more than 300 people at a legislative forum last week.

Archie Clemens, president of Caribou Technologies and a member of the Governor’s Science and Technology Advisory Council, told lawmakers at the forum to support $50 million in incentives to help the state’s high-tech industry grow, including tax credits designed to encourage investment in science and tech companies.

“We need to create incentives for capitalists to come in and help Idaho grow,” he said.

Lokken is the former CEO of ProClarity, a Boise high-tech company he sold to Microsoft in spring.

He said companies must have access to qualified employees to grow. If they aren’t available, he said, companies must hire from outside the area or find a new location to set up shop.

Idaho, he said, doesn’t have enough qualified employees and, because the state doesn’t offer education that is competitive with many other states, has a hard time attracting qualified workers.

He said Microsoft has struggled for nine months to find employees for two technical jobs.

“And that’s just two people,” he said. “If you ask me, ‘Will we grow?’ it all boils down to, how do I hire 200 people in Idaho?”

He told the group that one of the reasons he sold ProClarity to Microsoft was because Microsoft officials said they would keep the company in Boise. But he said that doesn’t mean the company will stay, especially if it can’t get workers.

“If you ask, ‘Will Microsoft grow in Boise?’ I can say we’re working on it,” Lokken said. “We’re working hard to convince the company that this is the right place to go. We hope we’re not working on it alone. I’m not sure we can solve the problem ourselves.”

Caleb Chung, co-founder of Ugobe, a California tech company that has a research and development office in Boise, said he was drawn to the state because it had a spirit of innovation.

“When people say, ‘Why Idaho?’ I say it’s a blend of beauty and magic,” he said. “Our forests and open spaces are the beauty, and the magic is our technology and innovation.”