2007 Gold & Silver Shovel Awards

We are pleased to recognize the successes of these states with our 2nd Annual Gold and Silver Shovel awards. Area Development contacted all 50 states and requested verifiable information about the top-10 job-creation and investment projects initiated in 2006. Only those projects that actually got under way, i.e., broke ground or expanded and initiated new hiring were considered.

Each state was then rated based on five weighted factors: projects’ direct job-creation numbers; the number of new jobs per capita; amount of companies’ investment; number of new facilities (either new to the state or new locations within the state); and the number of projects creating high value-added jobs. Georgia received the highest weighted overall score to take home the 2007 Gold Shovel award.

The remaining states were then ranked in three population categories: less than 3 million, 3 to 10 million, and greater than 10 million population. The three states with the highest scores in each category received runner-up Silver Shovel awards. In the “under 3 million” category, the award recipients were Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah (Kansas also won last year). The top finishers in the “3 to 10 million” category were Alabama (last year’s Gold Shovel recipient), Kentucky and Wisconsin (tied), and Missouri. Michigan and Texas repeated as winners in the “greater than 10 million” category, with the third Silver Shovel award in this population category going to Pennsylvania.