When Dell Inc. offered Jennifer Smith the opportunity to transfer from Austin, Texas, to Middle Tennessee about two years ago, Smith had to think about it. After all, she's spent the majority of her 38 years in Texas, and she'd never set foot in Nashville—she'd never even been through the airport.

Upon her first visit to check things out, she remembers pulling out of the rental car agency and having a three-minute conversation with the person in the booth.

"I thought, 'Wow, Nashvillians are just as friendly, if not friendlier, than Texans,'" she says.

And after spending some time in the area and at Dell's Eastgate manufacturing operation in Lebanon—one of the computer maker's three Middle Tennessee facilities—she decided this was a career move she'd like to make. She accepted the senior manager position at the Eastgate facility, and she's been very happy with her job and its location.

She began working for Dell as a graduate intern while receiving her MBA at the University of Texas in the late 1990s and became a full-time employee upon graduation.

"It's a fast-growing company in a field that combines technology and service, so it was definitely an industry I wanted to get into," she says.

As for Nashville—she's impressed with the city's outdoorsy options. She enjoys cycling, so she likes to go for rides on the Natchez Trace Parkway and in the Warner parks. She also appreciates not only the live music venues, but also the "phenomenal" arts scene, including the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.