When an Internet startup in Nashville offered her husband a job, Boston native Stasia Holdren really only needed to know one thing about the Music City.

"I had heard that Nashville had less snow than Boston, and I don't like the cold, so I took a chance, and I got lucky," says the 33-year old Holdren, who moved with her husband Scott to Nashville in 2000.

Today, Holdren is the vice president of business development for Sitening, a technology-focused Web design and strategy company that her husband and Jon Henshaw founded about three years ago. Holdren, who studied English literature and journalism in college and has worked in the Internet industry for the past 10 years, says she primarily serves as the chief communicator between the client and Sitening's IT team.

"I can talk with clients and figure out what they're looking for. Then I communicate that to the technical folks," she says.

She's a testament to IT opportunities in Nashville. Before joining Sitening in 2006, she developed digital media service offerings for Parthenon Publishing. Prior to that, she was the director of Internet services for Hammock Publishing. Once here, it did not take Holdren long to realize that she liked more than just the climate.

"I was overwhelmed at how nice the people are," she says. "I also liked how there seemed to be more of a work/life balance."

She and her husband have a three-year-old daughter, but when they were thinking about starting a family, they considered moving back to the Northeast to be closer to family. Ultimately, they couldn't leave Nashville behind, and eventually, family came to them instead. (Holdren's in-laws recently moved here.) "This is home now," Holdren says.

For a former city girl who's discovered that she likes a quieter life, the Nashville area offers the best of both worlds. "We live in Cheatham County and have about five acres with a barn and some chickens, so I like that I can have a little piece of country life and drive to my tech job in the city 25 minutes away," she says. "In Boston, that would not be possible."