New Bellingham venture is helping to create companies, jobs

Madison Miner hopes his story of staying in Bellingham to start a high-tech business becomes the rule rather than the exception.
Miner, a 2002 graduate of Western Washington University and an employee at Bellingham-based Engineering Design Automation, had been tinkering with an idea to start his own high-tech company. He believed it was a good idea, but wasn't sure what the next step should be. He wanted to bounce his idea off of others in the high-tech industry, but didn't think a resource like that existed in Bellingham.
Miner had resigned himself to the fact he would need to sell his Bellingham home and move to Seattle to try to find help. Instead, his plans changed when he wandered down East Chestnut Street near Kulshan Cycles a few months ago and noticed an office space with the name BIG Idea Lab, an incubator for high-tech firms that want to take an idea to market.