Boise - A Great Place to Work and Play
 Boise is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Idaho. Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S.
state of Idaho as well as the county seat of Ada County. Boise serves as the principal city of the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area
and is the largest city between Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon, and thus serves as the primary government, economic,
cultural, and transportation center for the area.
As of the 2007 Census Bureau estimates, Boise’s population was 202,832 with a metropolitan area estimated to have 587,689 inhabitants, making
it the most populous metropolitan area in Idaho and the third largest in the U.S.Pacific Northwest.
Economy
Boise is the headquarters for several major companies, such as URS Corp. Washington Division (formerly Washington Group International, formerly Morrison-Knudsen), Boise Cascade LLC, New Albertsons Inc., Albertsons LLC, J.R. Simplot Company, Idaho Pacific Lumber Company, Idaho Timber Corporation, WinCo Foods and Hewlett Packard’s printer division. Other major industries are headquartered in Boise or have large manufacturing facilities present. The state government is also one of the city’s largest employers.
The area’s largest private employer[13] publicly traded and headquartered company in Boise is Micron Technology (NYSE: MU). Others include IDACORP, Inc. (NYSE: ida), the parent company of Idaho Power, Idaho Bancorp (NYSE: IDA), Boise, Inc. (NYSE: BZ), American Ecology Corp. (NASDAQ: ECOL), PCS Edventures.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCSV) and Syringa Bancorp.
Technology investment and the high-tech industry have become increasingly important to the city, with businesses including Bodybuilding.com, Crucial.com, MobileDataForce, MarkMonitor, Sybase, Kayako, Balihoo.com and Microsoft. The call center industry is also a major source of employment; there are over 20 call centers in the city employing more than 7,000 people, including Teleperformance, DIRECTV and T-Mobile.[14].
Varney Airlines, founded by Walter Varney, was formed in Boise. The company is the root of present day United Airlines, which still serves the city at the newly renovated and upgraded Boise Airport.
Culture
Numbering about 15,000, Boise’s Basque community is the second largest such community in the United States after Bakersfield, California and the fourth largest in the world outside Argentina, Venezuela and the Basque Country in Spain and France.[16] A large Basque festival known as Jaialdi is held once every five years (next in 2010). Downtown Boise features a vibrant section known as the "Basque Block". Boise’s mayor, David H. Bieter, is of Basque descent.
Boise is also a regional hub for jazz and theater. The Gene Harris Jazz Festival is hosted in Boise each spring. The city is also home to a number of museums, including the Boise Art Museum, Idaho Historical Museum, the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, Idaho Black History Museum, Boise WaterShed and the Discovery Center of Idaho. Several theater groups operate in the city, including the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Boise Little Theatre, Boise Contemporary Theater, and Prairie Dog Productions. On the first Thursday of each month, a gallery stroll is hosted in the city’s core business district by the Downtown Boise Association. The city also has an Egyptian Theatre. In the Fall season, Downtown Boise hosts a film festival called Idaho International Film Festival.
The Boise Centre on the Grove is an 85,000-square-foot (7,900 m2) convention center that hosts a variety of events, including international, national, and regional conventions,conferences, banquets, and consumer shows. It is located in the heart of downtown Boise and borders the Grove Plaza which hosts numerous outdoor functions throughout the year.
The Morrison-Knudsen Nature Center offers water features and wildlife experiences just east of downtown. It is located adjacent to Municipal Park.[17] It features live fish and wildlife exhibits, viewing areas into the water, bird and butterfly gardens, waterfalls and a free visitor’s center.
The Jewish community’s Ahavath Beth Israel Temple, completed 1896, is the nation’s oldest continually-used temple west of the Mississippi.
Boise (along with Valley and Boise Counties) will host the Winter 2009 Special Olympics World Games. More than 2,500 athletes from over 85 countries will participate.[18]
Data From Wikipedia
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