Possibilities in Wyoming for an accountant and his family? (Casper: appointed, for sale)
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Possibilities in Wyoming for an accountant and his family?
Hey guys/gals,
I will be graduating from college this May and want to look in Wyoming as a place to work. I am not your typical graduating senior; I am 41 with 2 children 14 and 9, married for 19 years. Here in Virginia the opportunities seem to be more toward the D.C. area and that isnt my lifestyle. I have seen that Wyoming has low unemployment, nice gun laws, amble land with few restrictions, and hard working people this is why we have looked out there.
We were looking at Casper as as an accountant I will need to be within driving distance to a job. However, I dont want to get locked into to one area.
How is the job market in the rest of the state, are there other areas that you would recommend?
My kids swim competitively, snowboard, ride horses, shoot airsoft, play guitar. We would like to have things to do as I hear the wind just howls all the time there.
Are there any areas of the state that the wind doesnt blow your mind dumb and still has jobs and things to do for a active family.
Does the wind make it to where you cant go outside, how do you grilll out, plant a garden, swim, motorcross,ride horses, etc if the wind is constantly blowing hurricane force?
All of your questions about Wyoming lifestyle have received many pages of posts on various C-D threads already.
May I suggest that you use the search feature and take a look there?
RE: Economy and Jobs: There are areas of the state that are in "boom" times right now due to minerals and petroleum activity. Casper is one of them, as is Gillette.
IMO, you need to come visit Wyoming and see if it meets your expectations for climate, income, living conditions, activities, housing, and recreation. Locating a job that pays you a livable income will be a first priority; you need to see where the salary offers fall and then look to the local housing market and it's costs. As a general characterization, you'll find that professional salary levels here are significantly lower than the major metropolitan areas of the country ... and the costs of living are not necessarily commensurately lower. Only you can determine if the costs of being here are worth it to you at a given income level.
What you've heard about Wyoming is a bit exaggerated. While there are areas that are definately windy, it's not relentless and/or hard enough to drive you indoors for extended periods of time. Even in those windy areas you would probably see more no wind or slight breezy days than you would truly windy days over the course of a year.
If you are that concerned about the wind there are several areas of the state that are relatively calm. On the western side, I don't believe the Star Valley area gets much wind. In the west central part of the state the Big Horn Basin (Worland, Thermopolis) and the Wind River Basin (Riverton, Lander) get very little wind. The Sheridan area is not as windy, nor is the northeastern part of the state (Gillette).
Employment opportunities should be decent statewide, however as an accountant it may be more of being in the right place at the right time because the majority of jobs to be had tend to be blue collar.
Casper is one of the largest cities in Wyoming so there may be more opportunity there..... but you'll get the wind
I've lived here most of my life and hate the wind; fortunately I don't live in one of the "windy" areas of the state. I do remember going to school in Laramie, for my accounting degree , and there were times it would blow several days in a row. At the time, because I hate the wind, it seemed like it blew non-stop, but looking back there were a lot more nice days than windy. And even when there were those spells of wind, you learn to tolerate it.
The long way about it.... banking for 25 years.... now an accountant for a local company. Accounting is much more laid back... well unless you're a tax accountant who's life is married to the office for the next few months.
I have this vision of the wind being like a constant blow, that you just get tired of hearing it , good to know that it isnt quite that bad.
Sunspirit, it may surprise you that your teachers make a lot more than ours do in the shenadoah valley of virginia. So lower pay is a relative.
BTW, SunSpirit I see alot of your post on here and they always seem to be encouraging people not to come there, is this intentional?
Apparently you cannot tell the difference between somebody with local knowledge, expertise, and an honest reporter of what I see around me and somebody who comes on this forum with a totally PC outlook of feel good intentions.
If I hadn't seen so many people move here based upon totally false expectations of what Wyoming is all about ... be it climate, economy, jobs/working conditions, recreation, entertainment, income levels vs costs of living .... I'd not be posting these reports.
But it's not me that's come out here and left in short order with my dreams shattered ... it's a lot of people who think that Wyoming is all YNP and Jackson and so forth with the marlboro man out in the pastures a few minutes away from home/hearth/comforts/bar/restaurants/fashion shopping and his trusty 4x4 pickup that will tow his horse trailer home a couple of yards.
You have but to see the small towns and their local economies, the homes repeatedly offered for sale again ... some of them very new and well built on the best of intentions of folk who have moved here and discovered that Wyoming wasn't their cup of tea.
I'd point out, too, that I repeated, frequently, and often strongly advise folks to come out here to visit the place for themselves to see what it's about and see for themselves if it meets their expectations. How you could conclude from that repeated position that I'm actively discouraging folk from coming out here doesn't make sense. I've been telling them all along to come out here! but do so with an open mind about their real needs and wants and don't spend any money locking yourself into a situation that may be unacceptable in short order.
There's a lot of factors which relate to folk's happiness, and it's interesting to me how many people from riparian climates at low altitude don't realize how many of those factors they take for granted affect their happiness. You can hear it expressed in the disappointment many have that so much of Wyoming is BROWN most of the year, and our wooded areas aren't thick dense lush hardwood deciduous tree stands with substantial undergrowth. It's almost comparable to being above timberline in other climate zones, and it's a stark difference which folk realize isn't what they want to live with. Nor do many folk realize how daunting the winds/gusts are until they realize that it wasn't but a rare factor in their daily lives "back home". And so forth ... some people get very homesick for all the variety of entertainment or shopping or restaurants or bars or grocery stores .... witness the folk who complain that we don't have a Trader Joes or some other favorite shopping place here. And folks acclimated to high end retail shopping ... clothing, furniture, or similar goods ... who don't realize how much they depend upon this for their satisfaction in life ... will be woefully disappointed with what's available in Wyoming. Add to that the poor regional airline service, the long distances between the things they need/want to do ... and it can add up to a severe disconnect between their expectations of rural life in high density populated areas of the USA vs what presents here in Wyoming.
Yes, I am aware that Wyoming teacher salaries are some of the best starting salaries in the region. There's a reason for that beyond the good funding sources that Wyoming currently has statewide. It has a lot to do with school districts around the state recognizing that they could not attract or retain qualified teachers at wages that made it impossible for them to have a reasonable standard of living in light of the costs of being here. Similarly, Wyoming employers woke up to that reality when it came to the nursing profession; we've had a huge expansion in that sector and they had to do it by attracting people with more than an opportunity to keep their horse at home with nearby places to ride.
In any event, if you think my posts about Wyoming are so wrong, then you're certainly free to post your observations and we can agree to agree or disagree as the circumstances arise. FWIW, what specifics have I posted about Wyoming that you know to be wrong?
The long way about it.... banking for 25 years.... now an accountant for a local company. Accounting is much more laid back... well unless you're a tax accountant who's life is married to the office for the next few months.
What kind of things are you looking for, besides less wind. The areas I described above are going to have communities of between 5,000 and 15,000 populations. They would all be close to mountains (within 30 miles), would be between 1-3 hours from better shopping selection (other than Walmart/Kmart), and are primarily agriculture areas.
I do agree with Sunsprit that you need to come out and do your homework because it's gonna be a lot different than the east coast. It might be just what you and your family are looking for or you might feel like you're in a 3rd world country....
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Possibilities in Wyoming for an accountant and his family?
, and there were times it would blow several days in a row. At the time, because I hate the wind, it seemed like it blew non-stop, but looking back there were a lot more nice days than windy. And even when there were those spells of wind, you learn to tolerate it.
