
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 8, 1993                   TAG: 9309020339
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TELECOMMUTING

TELECOMMUTING - a hot concept in California and some other states - has been too slow catching on in tradition-bound Virginia. For Southwest Virginians, there definitely could be something in it.

Fredericksburg, of course, isn't in Southwest Virginia. It could, however, end up serving as an example of how (in this case with a shove from the government) the idea can be made to work. Fredericksburg is in the running for federal money earmarked for establishment of telecommuting centers in areas heavily populated by government workers.

The city is only 54 miles from Washington, but the trip on crowded Interstate 95 can be long and grueling, particularly during the so-called ``rush'' hours. In this era of telecommunications wizardry, goes the thinking, why make folks endure the trip when they can commute by computer and telephone?

The promise of telecommuting goes beyond Fredericksburg and government workers. Indeed, economic-development experts in Roanoke and Southwest Virginia have been talking up the telecommunications-employment link for several years. Here's the lowdown:

As much as the region might welcome them, how many employers elsewhere in Virginia and the nation can be enticed into packing up and relocating their entire businesses here in Southwest Virginia? Some, maybe - but how many more would consider establishing certain parts of their operations here, connected to other parts by telecommunications ?

"Telework centers" could be established. It would not matter that these would be hundreds of miles from a company's headquarters. Increasingly, the nature of work - whether it's manufacturing widgets or marketing gizmos - does not require the congregation of workers in a central factory or office setting. It simply requires that workers be wired in through modern technology.

The benefits to Southwest Virginia: jobs, jobs, jobs. Good-paying telecommutable jobs, which do not require local workers to pack up and move away from homes they love, or to make tediously long trips to and from work each day.

Telecommuting - whether for Fredericksburg residents who happen to have jobs with the federal government in Washington or for Southwest Virginia residents who happen to need jobs - is an economic-development "bridge" whose potential has scarcely been tapped. It's time to get more such bridges out of the talking stage and under construction.

by CNB