Local leaders invite 10 companies to relocate to Maryland where abortion is legal

County Govt Marc Elrich and state Del. Eric Luedtke are inviting 10 main firms based mostly in states which have restricted abortion entry, or are vulnerable to doing so, to think about shifting to Montgomery County or elsewhere within the state.

Luedtke, the Home majority chief within the Common Meeting, informed reporters throughout a press briefing Wednesday {that a} letter he and Elrich signed, together with state Del. Ariana Kelly (from District 16, which incorporates Bethesda), was despatched on July 27 to the next firms, individually:

• Tesla in Austin, Texas
• The Match Group in Dallas, Texas
• Dell in Spherical Rock, Texas
• AT&T in Dallas
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Spring, Texas
• McKesson in Irving, Texas
• Humana in Louisville, Kentucky
• HCA in Nashville, Tennessee
• Centene in St. Louis, Missouri
• McKesson in Irving, Texas
• Cerner in North Kansas Metropolis, Missouri

Luedtke mentioned officers haven’t heard instantly from any of the businesses about whether or not they would take into account relocating to Maryland or Montgomery County. He added, nonetheless, that he’s heard anecdotally about smaller companies and corporations that need to transfer out of states that is perhaps impacted by the Supreme Court docket’s current ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, and subsequent actions by governors and state legislatures in these states.

“There are many smaller companies, notably within the tech sector, doing work like video video games, information science, cybersecurity, who’re beginning to go searching and say, ‘, if I need to appeal to the most effective expertise, if I need to appeal to the most effective programmers, I should be in a spot the place these programmers really feel comfy residing,’ ” Luedtke mentioned.

“It doesn’t matter when you’ve got 5 staff or 5,000,” he added. “Montgomery County is open for enterprise.”

Elrich and Luedtke mentioned county and state officers will proceed to supply incentive packages to firms that need to find in Montgomery County. Luedtke added that locations like Austin, Salt Lake Metropolis and St. Louis which may see the enactment of legal guidelines inserting extra restrictions on abortion entry have sturdy tech industries, which match the cyber sector, videogame sector, and different industries in Maryland.

The leaders pointed to the training degree of county and state residents as property when pitching firms to maneuver to Montgomery County or elsewhere within the state.

“We’ve one of many strongest, most extremely educated, most technically expert workforces in America and loads of that expertise is concentrated in Montgomery County … . So sure, that could be a large draw for these firms, notably in a time of a tough labor market,” Luedtke mentioned.

Steve Bohnel may be reached at steve.bohnel@bethesdamagazine.com