The corporate siting website BusinessFacilities.com has ranked Washington County, Maryland as its #1 “rapid recovery leader” nationwide, citing its recent gains in job creation and wages.

From their summary report:

For our metro Recovery Leaders ranking, we took a look at the MSAs that have had the most impressive surges in job creation, wages and salaries in the past year. Hagerstown-Washington County, MD-Martinsburg, WV, Lexington-Fayette, KY and Spokane, WA were our top three.

Washington County’s government, business, and community organizations partner to help diversify the local economy by providing specialized support to industries that have been identified to benefit from the area’s assets. As a result, advanced manufacturing, aviation/aerodefense, and biotechnology/life science sectors are becoming a larger part of our industrial mix.

Located an hour from Washington, DC’s biotech corridor and less than 30 minutes from well-known national biodefense resource Fort Detrick in Frederick, MD, Washington County is an affordable place to do business with close proximity to local metropolitan areas. About 25 percent of Fort Detrick’s employees live in Washington County, MD and the activities at Fort Detrick generate more than $1.7 billion in economic activity in the region.

Washington County boasts a regional life science community with more than 11,000 professionals living in the area; a supportive community college with a successful biotech program and Fort Detrick internship agreement; and a high-tech business incubator. The Technical Innovation Center (TIC) at Hagerstown Community College (HCC) has 4,000 square feet of wet lab space with 5 startup research and production firm lessees. The entrepreneurs found Hagerstown from the suburban Washington, DC area and as far away as South Carolina.