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It’s a long way between Baton Rouge and Vermont in more than one sense: geography, politics, population, winter, accent, culture and culinary habits.

But they share this much: Both locales have lost many of their best and brightest young people to bigger cities, and they’re looking for ways to bring them back.

“Welcome Back to Baton Rouge,” the Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s project meant to do just that, will focus mostly on Atlanta, Dallas and Houston—the main recipients of Louisiana talent. Adam Knapp, BRAC’s president and CEO, says at the very least those three cities hold 17,000 LSU and Southern University graduates.

Welcome Back grew out of workforce assessment last year that identified the need for a targeted strategy for attracting people based on market demands—namely engineering, information technology and health care. Training the people we already have will help, he says, but that’s not enough by itself.

“It’s just as important to bring more workers into this market,” Knapp says. “Effectively we can’t train ourselves out of this shortage, so we have to be focused on all these things at the same time.”

It’s similar to what the Green Mountain State is doing to retrieve its talented young folk gone astray. Several years ago, James Candido, economic development specialist with the Vermont Department of Economic Development, started working with Commissioner of Economic Development Mike Quinn on what would eventually be branded “PursueVT.”

“We had a conversation with a business here that was saying they were looking to hire and were actually having trouble finding young people,” Candido says. “The light bulb went off.”

First, they conducted an intensive survey of expatriate college grads as well as grads still in the state to find out exactly who wanted to live in Vermont—essential information for a good marketing campaign. The survey revealed that the majority of Vermonters who’d left the state wanted to return, while the majority still living there wanted to stay.

“The thing about Vermont: It’s kind of expensive,” Candido says. “We have harsh winters. One of the things we realize is we really need to target the type of people who want to live here. That’s why we target expats.”

The survey results were used to craft PursueVT, which addresses retention as well as attraction issues. So far, they’ve focused on Boston and Cambridge, Mass., with events in those cities as well as targeted radio and print ads and advertising on alumni Web sites, MySpace and other free media sites.

The campaign began rolling out in September and is still evolving, Candido says. A major aim is to dispel the perception that Vermont—a small state with only about 600,000 people—has a lack of jobs. True, it’s easier to find opportunities in Boston or New York, though good jobs abound in Vermont, too, Candido says.

It’s pretty much the same perception Baton Rouge’s economic development leaders are faced with: For certain high-paying jobs, you have to go to Atlanta, Dallas or Houston. But the message BRAC wants to get out with its Welcome Back campaign is that a lot of growth is happening in the Baton Rouge market, Knapp says.

“The biggest issue is to tell them how dramatically things have moved forward in the last few years,” he says.

Like Vermont, BRAC is going after those with a connection to Louisiana to explain there’s actual opportunity here as well as family, food, fun and culture.

“Those of us who have worked outside the state know there’s always the desire to come back to Louisiana if the opportunity presents itself,” Knapp says.

Jim Ellis, an attorney and BRAC’s chairman, echoes the sentiment.

“This is just a continuation of the mantra that we’ve been teaching. There is no better time for the Baton Rouge area to market itself than right now,” he says. “There is such an excitement and buzz in the business community and, I think, the community at large. This is a wonderful, wonderful time for our region, and I think we’re really poised to be an important city.”

PursueVT has spent about $200,000 so far, mostly from state funding, though it’s moving more toward private support as more companies realize the value of the program, Candido says. BRAC is in the process of drumming up support among the private sector to breathe life into Welcome Back, which BRAC’s Mike Odom estimates will require a minimum of 10 private partners putting up about $2,500 a piece to get things rolling. So far, Baton Rouge General Medical Center—which has a new Bluebonnet Boulevard campus expansion to staff—is the only one that’s signed up.

BRAC hopes to get some match money from Louisiana Economic Development as well. The first phase of Welcome Back will involve three months of print ads and e-marketing, Odom says, though advertising on alumni association Web sites will probably run for a year. Ads will direct people to a Welcome Back Web site featuring links to various area companies looking for employees.

Candido says Vermont’s higher education institutions historically haven’t focused on steering graduates to in-state jobs—not that he blames them, with Montreal, New York and Boston so near. All the same, PursueVT has managed to get colleges and universities on board, which helps the effort, he says. Whether LSU and Southern will have a role in Welcome Back remains to be seen.

“For a long time, we’ve seeded the employment sector of many larger communities with our graduates,” Knapp says. “It’s time to change that.”

Ellis says most active job seekers already know what’s going on in Louisiana in terms of opportunity. It’s the passive ones, who might not be actively looking but might respond to a little nudge, that Ellis hopes to clue in with Welcome Back.

“It’s really a very intelligent approach trying to lure people back and put them in touch with companies that are interested in having them come back,” he says. “And, of course, we’ll have a lot of support and resources from BRAC already in place that will go into the program.”