Every journey begins with that first step and this one is just starting. I live here in Bend, Oregon where we are fortunate to have an amazing environment in which to play, live, and simply experience the great outdoors. In recent years, the area has become a boom-town of sorts. This January, Bend actually made the Economist with an article that was titled “Booming Bend”. However, it’s not the kind of boom-town which has expanded the salaries, increased the education base, or provided advanced jobs. It is instead what some people have called the “Palm Springs of the North”. Moreover, the average salary, according to a recent article in the local Bend Bulletin newspaper, put average Bend salaries below that of the national average, but with a housing and real estate market that’s still “hot” as compared with the rest of the nation, most people here simply cannot afford the homes…but that’s another post.I moved here from the Bay Area, and before that Colorado, DC, Chicago, and Oregon - yes I made a round trip 10 year excursion. And, I moved here with the same dream as most people who have come here - the environment, the climate, the small-town feel, the clean-air, the lack of traffic…and the list goes on. But, I also moved here with a vision and a dream that we can also not simply become an expensive, elite, vacation town, but rather one that provides a foundation for the future while still maintaining that small-town atmosphere. Impossible, I don’t think so! Hard, you bet!Ok - so get to the point as to what BendTech is all about. Simply put, we have the “primordial goo”, the early DNA of incredible technical talent, companies, and resources in the area. Every week a huge number of folks, myself included, hop on the local commuter flights to San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle. People who are working in technical positions for Microsoft, Cisco, HP, Oracle, The New York Times, IBM, Sony, Intel, start-ups, etc. And, everyone wants to travel less. At the same time, there are a small number of companies in the area that have planted roots and are actively seeking good technical talent. And, finally, there certainly is money in the area.The objective of BendTech is to bring all of these pieces together so that we can all look back 20 years from now and see a well established technology industry rooted in the community. We are just beginning this journey and it will not be an overnight “start-up”, but rather there are a number of key initiatives we are focusing on to help make this vision a reality. Stay tuned and check back here often as we get things going. And, if you’d like to be a part of this, please contact me directly at matt.abrams@bendtech.com.Welcome to the future of Bend!