[ridicter]

Your point's valid as far as the importance of depth of engineering talent, but I will push back and say the talent's not nearly as sparse in St. Louis as you think.

St. Louis has two strong universities: Washington University[1], ranked 14th in the nation, and St. Louis University, ranked 101st [2]. Washington University has the 7th ranked SAT score average, ahead of Stanford, Columbia, Duke, et. al. [3]

While a huge chunk of these kids move away from St. Louis (including myself), the challenge of getting talent to St. Louis isn't as hard when you have a strong U. in the area as a default. There are also great champions of the St. Louis scene, like Jim McKelvey, cofounder of Square and Wash U alum.

[1] http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/... [2] http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/... [3] http://www.businessinsider.com/complete-ranking-of-americas-... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McKelvey