He's collaborated with Northern Telecom, bringing different town officials together to discuss their common high-tech needs.

FORBES: Local heroes

Jeff Landy of the Information Technology Association thinks there's simply wider acceptance now that the high-tech industry needs these workers.

NPR: Critics: High-Tech Visas Cheat U.S. Workers

One is external to the state: the global economy has become a much more knowledge-intensive place, with even the oil business turning into a high-tech industry, so Texas needs more and better universities and schools.

ECONOMIST: Lone Star rising

The same children who worked the fields now attend college, work in high-tech maquiladoras, or serve the needs of the fast-growing supply, retail and tourist industries.

ECONOMIST: One river, one country

And of course, we shouldn't forget Vladikavkaz Technology Center's Baspik , which makes high-tech night-vision equipment--just what every sapper team needs anywhere in the world.

FORBES: Beyond Gazprom

Fact: The economic powerhouse that is the Mississippi high-tech economy is just now emerging from an usually long slump and needs protection now more than ever.

FORBES: The Curious Case Of Anshan Steel And The Space-Age Rebar Technology

But it is notoriously ill-suited to high-tech industries that have to tailor each item to a customer's specific needs (as in a data-switching centre or air-traffic-control system) or in which it is crucial that thousands of interrelated components all work correctly together (as in a rocket vehicle).

ECONOMIST: The land of disappointments