Did Amazon miss tech boom in Cincinnati area? Experts and data suggest it did.

They just didn't see it.

Seattle-based tech titan Amazon said a dearth of talent was the overriding concern when it rejected Cincinnati's regional bid for the company's so-called HQ2.

But experts and data suggest Cincinnati is doing just fine when it comes to tech talent - and better than some of the cities Amazon selected.

A look at the latest employment figures shows Cincinnati stacks up well against most of the other Midwestern cities that made the cut of 20 finalists, including Pittsburgh, Columbus and Indianapolis.

The Cincinnati area had more than 32,000 employees in computer and mathematical occupations in May 2016, based on an Enquirer analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Those were better numbers than Indianapolis, which had just over 31,000 workers in computer and math professions, and not much less than Pittsburgh's employment in the same fields of about 35,000. Columbus topped the list of Midwest finalists for the HQ2 with more than 43,000 employees in computer and math fields.

And the Cincinnati area is catching up rapidly, according to a recent report from CBRE Group Inc., which found Cincinnati grew tech jobs by nearly 60 percent from 2011 to 2016 - trailing only Indianapolis in high-tech job growth.

"Perhaps Super Bowl rings or country music venues were thrown in as possible tie-breakers (in the HQ2 selection process),'' said Calandra Cruickshank, CEO of New York-based StateBook International, which provides online data for site-selection firms. "But when it comes to the tech talent supply, Cincinnati measures very highly.''

Jordan Vogel, vice president of talent initiatives at the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, said Amazon just didn't recognize the depth of the area's tech talent pool.

"We've got a robust startup community with tons of tech talent,'' Vogel said. "Amazon may not have had as much visibility to the fact that we have all this talent and opportunity here.''

'We're part of a growing tech ecosystem'

Renji Bijoy - founder and CEO of Immersed, an OTR-based virtual reality company - is in the vanguard of computer programmers, software developers and others putting Cincinnati on the tech map.

After getting his business off the ground at Chicago-based Techstars - a startup accelerator that attracts companies from all over the world - Bijoy brought his business back to Cincinnati where he launched the idea.

"Techstars really helped us lock down a good business plan and investors,'' Bijoy said. "But then we had the ability to be wherever we wanted to be, and we decided to come back to Cincinnati.

It was a lifestyle choice, according to Bijoy: "We have friends and family here. We're part of a church here, and we're part of a growing tech ecosystem.''

Why Amazon didn't see it

Amazon didn't see it that way, according to Ed Loyd, a spokesman for REDI Cincinnati - the regional development arm of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.

Despite evidence that Cincinnati is one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the Midwest, Amazon rejected REDI's regional bid for its second headquarters, where it plans to hire about 50,000.

Amazon also cited the area's poor transportation infrastructure as a factor in its decision.

However, "At the end of the day, their feedback was that talent was the most important factor out of everything they looked at,'' according to Loyd, who said

Amazon did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The company set the parameters for its HQ2 site search early on, emphasizing its interest in a sizable city of more than 1 million people with good transportation, strong schools and a talented workforce.

Cincinnati has all of that, according to Vogel, including a hidden gem of potential tech talent working at some of the area's numerous Fortune 500 companies.

"Cincinnati is a corporate headquarters town, and we have a certain caliber of highly-skilled worker who could be "incentivized" to pursue another career path in technology,'' said Vogel, who joined the chamber just over a year ago to lead its efforts to attract and retain talent in the region.

"We haven’t yet created the line-of-sight that makes clear all the things the area has to offer,'' he said. "That's why we're building programs that are designed to make sure that there is awareness of what we can offer as a region.''

Those efforts include the launch in December of the chamber-sponsored website, cincyisit.com, which highlights the Cincinnati area's tech industry as well as opportunities for tech workers at big and small firms in the area.

In addition, the website touts the Cincinnati as one of the top metros for tech startups - something Vogel can attest to personally as one of the original founders of Cintrifuse - a startup incubator based in Over-the-Rhine.

Hundreds of new tech firms

Cintrifuse had fewer than a dozen companies in its portfolio five years ago. Today, it boasts more than 300.

Other startup groups in the area - including Brandery and CincyTech, which share space with Cintrifuse in a contemporary building at 1311 Vine St. - all have helped launch hundreds of new tech firms in recent years, according to Henry Molski, marketing manager for Cintrifuse.

But unlike some other mid-sized cities on the Amazon HQ2 shortlist, Cincinnati's tech growth has yet to be recognized with major investment from the top industry players would aid in attracting Amazon.

For example, San Francisco-based tech giant Salesforce.com has established a regional headquarters in downtown Indianapolis, where it has promised to add 800 workers by 2021.

And Pittsburgh has a large Uber autonomous vehicle research and development plant as well as a massive Google campus that opened in 2006 and employs more than 500.

"We have tech talent, but it may not have been immediately visible to the Amazon site selection people because we don't have the volume other cities have,'' Molski said. "It's real easy for them (Amazon) to check the box when they see companies like Google and Salesforce already there.''