Most people know Cochrane as a charming town with good ice cream, but may not know the town is a business hub.

Alberta Venture Magazine has ranked Cochrane as the fifth best community to do business in Alberta, beating out larger cities such as Calgary.

This feature ranks cities, towns, and regions by population growth, employment and tax rate, and median home price to determine their overall economic strength.

Mike Korman, Town Of Cochrane, Senior Manager of Economic Development says, there’s lots of reasons we rank so high.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the promotion of the businesses that we currently have here. We’ve been doing this for about three years, focusing on innovation. We’ve found an incredible technology hub here.”

Korman says with all the growth the town is working towards solidifying a great economic base.

“We have a lot of inquiries, a lot of people are looking for land to buy, looking for businesses and franchises to go in. We get about 2-3 inquiries a week which is quite a lot, even with the economy being in a downturn we do see other industries popping up and making an effort to take advantage of low prices, and construction costs.”

Although we beat our neighbours to the east, Korman adds we have a lot to thank Calgary for.

“I mean it’s interesting to beat Calgary, but as a region we really do business together, you can’t deny that there’s a million and a half customers to the east that play a part in Cochrane business as well.”