News

Alabama earns 'Gold Shovel' award from trade journal; Tennessee and Virginia merit silver

July 12, 2006—Alabama has earned the 2006 Gold Shovel Award for its economic development achievements from the trade magazine Area Development. Tennessee and Virginia were named Silver Shovel winners in the category of states with a population of three to 10 million. The three states are among the seven in the TVA service area.

The Gold and Silver Shovel Awards are based on verifiable job-creation and investment information from all 50 states. The magazine uses five weighted factors to determine the winners: direct job creation, new jobs per capita, amount of company investment, number of new facilities, and number of projects that create high-value-added jobs. Only projects that actually began construction or expansion and initiated new hiring were included in the tallies.

Read the Area Development story.