“The ranking confirms that the Huntsville /Madison County community continues to benefit from Redstone Arsenal and related government contractors,” said Chamber of Commerce of Huntsville/Madison County Board Chair Irma Tuder. “As the demand for a technical workforce continues to increase, the ranking will help us attract the needed talent to our area.”

The ranking also mentions the Army Materiel Command coming to Redstone Arsenal as part of BRAC 2005 recommendations that will bring 4,700 direct jobs to Huntsville with a contracting tail of nearly 5,000.

“This is great recognition and supports what we tell workforce candidates who are considering career opportunities in the Huntsville/Madison County community,” said Chamber President/CEO Brian Hilson. “The community has always had a tremendous number of highly educated people in many different high-technology fields. And with the expected growth associated with the 2005 BRAC, Huntsville and Madison County will continue to have excellent career opportunities available in aerospace and defense, which remain two of our targeted industry and workforce recruitment areas.”

In addition to the ranking as a top city for defense jobs, Forbes recently named Huntsville the 15th best place in the country for business and careers and indicated that Huntsville will have the second highest job growth in the country. Huntsville led the State of Alabama in both rankings. The new ranking is an increase from the 2008 ranking of 50.

Huntsville has received several other national rankings and recognitions over the past three months, including:

• Being named the Country’s Leading Metro for Consumer Lending Growth (Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2009);
• Being named one of the 10 Great Cities for Salary Growth (Yahoo! hotjobs, January 2009).

To see the full article, visit http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/02/military-jobs-opportunities-leadership-careers-cities.html.