Editor's note: This story originally published on Oct. 5, 2018.

JEFFERSON, Ia. — This north-central Iowa town of about 4,200 people faces many of the problems other rural communities face: Shrinking population, deteriorating downtowns, aging homes and consolidating schools.

But a unique agreement with a Des Moines technology consultant could change its future — and possibly provide a model for revitalizing other rural Iowa communities.

Pillar Technology plans to open a $1.7 million office in Jefferson and hire up to 30 workers. Jefferson, in turn, will build a new career academy that begins an intensive student software development training program that feeds the company's workforce pipeline.

The payoff for high school students is a chance at Pillar jobs that pay $75,000 per year by the time they're in their early twenties. It's twice the average pay rural Iowans receive.

"Growing up in rural Iowa, there's this conveyor belt that no one talks about. When people graduate from college, they leave forever and never come back," said Linc Kroeger, who grew up in Iowa and oversees Ohio-based Pillar Technology's new business development in Iowa and surrounding states.

Pillar Technology's ambitious goal is to slow — or possibly stop — that conveyor belt.

Kroeger hopes the model the company is developing with Jefferson can be expanded into two dozen rural towns. It's an approach he believes accounting, human resources and other business services companies could duplicate.

The tide Kroeger and Pillar is trying to stop, though, is massive.

While Greene County's jobs have grown in recent years, thanks mostly to construction of a new casino, when taken together, small and mid-sized Iowa cities — from Creston to Mason City and Fort Dodge — have not recovered the jobs lost in the 2008 recession, said David Swenson, an Iowa State University economist.

Low unemployment rates in rural areas reflect a shrinking labor force rather than signaling strong economies, Swenson said.

The unemployment rate in Greene County sat at 2 percent in August, below the state's 2.5 percent, the second-lowest in the nation.

But the county's population has dropped close to 4 percent since 2010, census data shows.

Rural towns need to look at diversifying local economies beyond manufacturing and agriculture to grow, Swenson said.

The Jefferson proposal could be the right formula. "It's a great example of innovation and developing new opportunities in rural areas that are linked to the growing parts — not the dying parts — of the U.S. economy," he said.

Chris Deal, a mechanical engineer from Jefferson who met Kroeger through work and urged him to expand in his hometown, said he believes the Pillar model "can work in other communities."

And it can transform them: "If you take $55,000 to $75,000 in a rural community and do that 25, 30 times over, that's a game-changer," he said.

'It should appeal to everybody'

Quiet and careful, 16-year-old Mitchell Stevens uses his free time to learn coding languages that can make computer screens dance.

But Stevens also loves music, and spent part of the summer traveling in Europe playing the french horn this summer.

He's part of teacher Jeff Whyle's "nerd herd," a growing group of students finding joy in computer science.

Whyle has added computer programming for fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders this year. The deal with Pillar piques their interest, he said.

"When I tell them how much they could make, their eyes just get real big," Whyle said.

Stevens, a junior, said a career programming computers would be "something I would love to do."

And his father, Chad Stevens, likes the idea that his son would have little debt when he finishes training. "It should appeal to everybody," said Chad Stevens.

"If you can find a good-paying job, and didn't have to spend $80,000 to $100,000 going to college to get it, that's a plus," said the construction contractor.

Chad Stevens doubts teenagers really understand how much money they could earn. But it hits home in a rural area where wages are closer to $9 or $10 an hour than $35.

"Nobody buys a new home or builds a new home at $9 an hour," said the builder, whose son spends summers helping him replace roofs, windows and make other home repairs.

And with four children, Chad Stevens likes the idea, too, of keeping them close to home.

"It would be nice to not drive all over the country at 70 to see my grandkids," he said.

Students 'never imagined that future there'

The opportunity for big-city jobs — and big-city paychecks — helped sell Jefferson residents on a $21.5 million bond issue, rejected twice before it passed in April, leaders said.

Combined with about $14 million from the school district and other groups, Jefferson will invest about $35.5 million in a new high school, gym, auditorium and career academy.

And the new high school will enable Greene County School District to shift students from a 100-year-old middle school that leaders hope to turn into much needed apartments.

Kroeger said he thinks residents rejected the earlier bond issues because felt like they were educating students, only to export them to other cities.

Now students can "see they can have professional technology careers and stay in Jefferson. ... They never imagined that future there," said the 50-year-old, who left Iowa after high school and didn't return until Pillar opened the Des Moines Forge, what the company calls its operations, two years ago.

Zach Mannheimer, a community development consultant at McClure Engineering Co. in Clive, said it will take more than Pillar and its jobs to attract young workers and families to Jefferson.

"Jefferson and other communities like it, until recently, have not offered the amenities that the next-generation workforce is looking for," Mannheimer said. That includes restaurants, parks, trails and modern housing.

Jefferson is discussing creating a three-block area, anchored by the middle-school apartments, with a new indoor aquatic center and splash pad, walking paths and expanded day care.

"It's these concepts that will bring back people to rural Iowa. It will be, in my opinion, the next place to pioneer," said Mannheimer, who's working with Jefferson and Pillar.

'23 years old, earning around $75,000'

Part of Greene County School District's new focus on computer science training is to prep students for the new Pillar program, said Tim Christensen, the district's superintendent.

And part of it is to meet a new state requirement to make students more computer savvy.

"I think we all realize that computer skills are something that will be part of our lives forever," Christensen said.

Pillar isn't the only workforce need the academy will feed. It also will provide agricultural technology, advanced manufacturing, and culinary and hospitality training.

Big employers include farm equipment manufacturer Deere & Co., garbage truck maker Scranton Manufacturing, and a newly opened Wild Rose Casino.

Students interested in Pillar's program will need to take about a year of community college course work, some through high school, before hooking up with Pillar's own academy, a six- to 18-month program where they will apply what they learn to help nonprofit groups with tech challenges.

After that, the students can apply to become Pillar employees, earning $60,000 to $65,000 a year while they continue training in an apprenticeship program for up to 24 months.

"It's created to be a two-year path, but if you can get it done in six months ... you're done when you're done," Kroeger said.

After that, students can move into regular Pillar employment, in whatever office they'd prefer. Pillar isn't looking to tap cheap labor in Jefferson, he said.

"You could be 23 years old, earning around $75,000 a year," Kroeger said.

That's good, Swenson said, because "there's intense competition for young people with technical skills — in the health care industry, the finance industry, advanced manufacturing," he said.

'Shift from a retirement community'

Nick Sorensen, the city's housing enforcement officer, says the city's investment in the community helped ready Jefferson for the Pillar Technology deal.

It's tackling deteriorating downtown buildings — investing $150,000 each to replace windows, repair roofs, rebuild floors and other work in four buildings that can be redeveloped.

And the state, city and private owners have invested $1 million to upgrade 13 downtown building facades.

Pillar Technology will lease about 6,000 square feet in the two-story, 1900s Odd Fellows building near the city square. The city won a $100,000 state "catalyst grant," designed to spark new development.

"You can feel that shift from being a retirement community," Sorensen said.

New people, old problem

With the hope of more people staying and moving to Jefferson, the city faces the worsening of an existing challenge — housing, said Sorensen and Mike Palmer, the city administrator.

Pillar will need to hire some experienced techies while ramping up training and staffing the Jefferson Forge.

And a large number of Jefferson employees who live outside the city say they'd move into town if there were available housing, Sorensen said.

But Jefferson is lucky if it sees four home building permits a year, Sorensen said, adding that the city is trying to get a comprehensive assessment on how many new homes and apartments it will need.

With the last apartments built in the 1990s, Sorensen said developers will likely need some gap financing to make the projects financially feasible.

Leaders are exploring how they can put together a private revolving loan program that can spark more housing development. "We have to consider a lot of options," Sorensen said.

Going back home

At his family's apple orchard outside Jefferson, Chris Deal said he came back to Jefferson because he and his wife longed to raise their three children in rural Iowa.

Both farm kids, the couple like the slower pace in Jefferson, being near family and friends, and the opportunity for community involvement most people don't find in larger cities.

"We’ve both had just really strong, great experiences growing up in close-knit communities, and we were looking for that," said Deal, who works at MODUS, a consulting engineering firm in Des Moines that helped design Pillar's office in Des Moines' Western Gateway.

Kroeger said he wanted to expand the business, and was considering a rural location.

Deal, a mechanical engineer who telecommutes half-time to Des Moines, suggested Jefferson.

"A lot of things were moving in the community, and it set the stage for the next big step," said Deal, who purchased and will develop the Pillar building in Jefferson.

"This is a once-in-a generation opportunity for students and for the community," he said.