Zachary Pullen is an illustrator who paints front covers for big-name print clients in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Those clients include Esquire magazine, Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal and Simon & Schuster publishing company.

And Pullen does all of his artistic work from home in Casper.

Life in Casper, Wyoming

Wyoming is blessed with spectacular natural beauty and wide-open spaces, free of the noise, congestion and crime of major metro areas. But underpinning its stellar quality of life is a Wyoming's economic development, a sophisticated and technologically advanced business infrastructure that gives entrepreneurs such as Pullen the freedom to work where they want to live. A $29 million state investment, for example, produced a statewide high-speed telecommunications network.

“I can live anywhere given the career I’m in, but I grew up in Wyoming and love the Casper area,” Pullen says. “So I oil-paint my magazine and book covers and then overnight-mail my finished works to clients.”

Pullen attended art school in Ohio. He moved back to Wyoming briefly and married his wife, Renate. The couple moved to New York City, where they lived for seven years while Pullen established himself. “I needed to be close to potential clients and the publishing world,” he says.

“I was fortunate enough to get a contract to illustrate my first children’s book, then my workload kept mushrooming from there.”

Around the time his son, Hudson, turned 2, Pullen says his career had become successful enough for the family to return to Wyoming.

“We specifically decided upon Casper,” he says. “I love the four seasons, and you can’t beat summer nights with the crisp, clean air. So I’m actually leading a New York business lifestyle but living in Wyoming. It’s a really nice gig.”

Laramie, Wyoming Attracts Entrepreneur

Wyoming finished third among the 50 states in CQ Press’ 2007 and 2008 Most Livable State rankings, based on 44 economic, educational, health-related, public safety, and environmental statistics ranging from median household income to crime rate to sunny days.

Those factors are enough to keep long-time Laramie resident and entrepreneur Mike Kmetz in place. Kmetz owns Integrated Design Engineering Systems, or IDES, which developed an Internet search engine for the plastics and chemical industries.

“If you are an engineer at John Deere looking for plastic to make a farm implement widget, you would go to our IDES.com website and search for the best plastic based on your engineering requirements,” Kmetz says.

He founded his company in Laramie in 1986 and says he has never thought about moving anywhere else because the quality of life is so excellent.

Kmetz says that besides a pro-technology way of thinking that exists in Laramie, he likes the fact that residents can virtually leave their doors unlocked, hit the ski trails on their lunch hour or go fishing or hiking after work.

“It’s really like that around here. Ask any of the 20 people at my company, and you’ll pretty much get the same answer,” he says. “Wyoming is just a great place to live, work and play. It really is.”