Walking into the expanded United Technologies Research Center in East Hartford was like transporting to a different state or parallel universe Friday afternoon.

No one was critical of Connecticut’s finances. No one said the state was in a fiscal death spiral. No one said Connecticut was a bad place for business. No one said Connecticut can’t draw young, highly educated talent to the Capital Region.

Instead, it was only high praise for the state that’s housed Pratt and Whitney and corporate parent United Technologies since the early part of the 20th century.

The company’s CEO directly thanks Gov. Dannel Malloy and attributed the company’s commitment and success in Connecticut to the relationship he and his executive team have with the current administration.

That same administration had to deal with the political fallout of finding out that Aetna will likely announce it is leaving Hartford in the coming months.

CEO Greg Hayes said, “This is the great example of why Connecticut is such a great place to do business because we can have such a talented organization like this."

The United Technologies Research Center is the main innovation hub or the aerospace and engineering giant. It employs more than 500 people from 45 different countries.

Those who run the center say they haven’t had any trouble recruiting talent, even though the narrative about Connecticut is that it has trouble with that very issue.

"Half of our folks we hired in the last five years. They love being here,” said Dr. David Parekh, the Director of the UTRC. “They put their roots in the community and they enjoy working together and they themselves are the ones recruiting others saying hey, come and work and come and join us and be a part of the innovation that's happening at UTC."

Governor Dan Malloy said following the event that walking through the center, he thinks the talk of Connecticut’s demise are overblown, even though on his watch both General Electric and Aetna made clear their intentions to find new homes.

"In this very building you have 45 different countries represented as part of this research team and there aren't too many places in the world where that can happen and East Hartford is one of them."