Here's why Bio-Tech jilted New Mexico for Louisiana.(Business)

Byline: PLANET BUSINESS By Sherry Robinson

Call this company the one that got away.

Bio-Tech Imaging Inc. announced last month that it would build its $10 million production plant in Shreveport, La. The company plans to hire 86 people, who will earn $30,000 to $40,000 each a year.

Normally, economic development is so furtive we don't know whom we lost, but this time the company not only waved goodbye but management was willing to sit down for a frank review of its experience.

It's particularly timely, considering the city's brave and much-needed Next Generation Economy Initiative launched with great fanfare to attract just this kind of company.

My purpose here isn't to beat up on our economic-development folks. This is more an opportunity to figure out how to do it better.

Bio-Tech, based in Frederick, Md., has developed a rapid HIV test. In 1998 it opened a virus-research lab in Lovelace …