BY SEAN HAO, FLORIDA TODAY – Local officials have suspected that Brevard County is becoming a home for high-tech industry thanks to its ties to the space and defense programs. Now they have proof.

On Tuesday, the Melbourne/Palm Bay/Titusville area ranked among the nation's top 60 "cyber-cities," according to a report by the American Electronics Association, a trade group for electronics companies, and the NASDAQ stock market.

Brevard ranked eighth nationwide for its concentration of high-tech jobs as a percentage of overall private-sector employment, following behind San Jose, Calif.'s Silicon Valley and beating out Raleigh, N.C., home to Research Triangle, a center of university research.

Overall, the report provides mixed results on Brevard's high-tech base, while giving the community national recognition as a leading technology community.

"It gets our name known nationally with large companies looking for a place to do business and prosper," said Greg Lugar, economic development director for Brevard.

The report which tracks such factors as payroll, wages and number of businesses, also is aimed at raising an awareness of technology jobs and their economic impact. In Brevard, 326 high-tech businesses with 19,509 workers infuse $868 million in annual wages into the economy, the report said.

The availability of high-tech talent, Florida's "sun-and-fun" reputation and relatively low wages, and land and building costs, led to JDS Uniphase Broadband Communications Products' recent decision to expand in Melbourne, said Chuck Sink, the subsidiary's vice president and general manager.

That operation is part of fiber-optic communications company San Jose-based JDS Uniphase Corp. It plans to grow its local workforce from 260 people to between 600 and 700 people during the next five years, Sink said.

"If California is Silicon Valley, then Florida is Silicon Swamp," he said.