While unemployment remains high, the White House said today nearly 650-thousand jobs have been saved or created under the economic stimulus plan.

And one success story being cited by the administration is an environmental consulting firm here in Reno. A company that's used a stimulus loan to create high-paying jobs and create a new business model for a new economy.

It may have been Halloween casual Friday at Huffman and Carpenter offices in south Reno, but a visitor shouldn let the costumes fool them.

The pirates and witches hunched over computer screens are highly educated scientists and computer programmers and the work they do has a serious impact on the environment and the economy.

If your project requires wetland restoration or mitigation, these are the people you need in your corner. For years this small firm did great business, then came the credit crunch, construction stopped the phone went silent. Every thing changed.

"Overnight there was no new work," says company president and CEO Lori Carpenter. "We had service contracts, but that wouldn't suipport the staff."

She was convinced her company had to find a new way forward.

What emerged from months of analysis was a new business model, an internet based approach, software linking client, financial firms and regulatory agencies, a streamlined approach to what has been a cumbersome process.

But this new business model needed capital--money to hire the specialized staff to get it going. Even with great credit, no loans were available. Then stimulus money through the Small Business Administration made it all possible.

"Good key people all have family. They have good jobs," says Carpenter. "So what're they going to do. They're going to hunker down and stay exactly where they're at. So, if you're going to get someone to take a risk and come to a small company, we had to have that money in the bank. We had to ensure them that we had two years salary in the bank and that's what that money did for us."

By the spring when the company's software is launched, she expects to employ as many as 50.

And in the next few years as the company expands its operations to other areas, the number could be 400 or more, all well-paid white collar jobs, most here in Reno.

She says none of it would have happened if the recession hadn't forced a reevaluation of how the company does business and then the stimulus money making the leap financially possible.

"You can't ride this out," she says. It's a new world, a new economy. It;'s not enough to be the best. It's not enough to be good and have a good client base, if you don't change the way you do business, you're going to have a hard time staying in business.