I'm a student at BYU in Provo, UT. There are a lot of good hackers out here, about half of the students stay after they graduate. There are lots of startups in the area, with top-rated universities around the state; and more VC's (http://vSpring.com, for 1 example) are being formed as the tech startup environment continues to mature

Provo is "the country's second largest software center," according to Kiplinger,featuring top employers Novell, Micron Technology and Omniture."

http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/2008/05/2008-best...

Some of my friends work for http://EnticeLabs.com (a software startup in the HR space), http://InsideSales.com is out here, http://Omniture.com of course (founded by BYU students), and there's a growing list of tech bloggers to keep track of it all (http://connectblogs.com)