Paul Coulter, president of a Sacramento, Calif.-based logistics software firm, likes Charleston so much he's opening his East Coast operations office here.

Coulter's company, Transportation Management Concepts Inc.-Tramco-provides software and consulting services that help food service companies manage freight shipments.

The firm will open its East Coast office at the corner of East Bay and Hassell streets and become part of the Digital Corridor, which stretches from downtown Charleston to Daniel Island and is specially zoned for high-tech companies.

Tramco's office will start with three employees, but Coulter expects that number to grow to 12 within the next two years. "Tramco's addition to the Charleston Digital Corridor provides opportunities in three ways," says Ernest Andrade, director of the Digital Corridor. "First, it creates additional technical opportunities in Charleston. Second, Tramco has already started to utilize the professional services of existing corridor companies, and third, it allows us to show off our city to a new audience-Tramco's visiting clients."

Many of Tramco's clients are on the East Coast, and many of those clients had been pressuring the software firm to open an East Coast operations office. Coulter considered Richmond, Va., Charlotte, N.C., Baltimore and other "compatible" East Coast cities. "But then my wife and I asked ourselves, 'Why not put it where we want to be and where clients would like to visit?' So we chose Charleston," says Coulter, a frequent Charleston visitor.

Coulter says it was Charleston's quality of life that sold him. "It's historical, warm, attractive-it just has something special about it." He adds that Canadian high-tech company DBI Technologies Inc., which develops Tramco's software, might open a Charleston office.

Coulter formed Tramco in 1990 in Salt Lake City after spending 10 years as chief financial officer for Houston-based food service giant Sysco Corp., which had a Salt Lake City office and is a Tramco client. He moved Tramco to San Francisco before settling the company in less expensive Sacramento, Calif.

In addition to providing customized logistics software for food transporters, Tramco offers accounting and logistics consulting, plus contracts and claim management services. "We see companies such as Tramco becoming the backbone for Charleston's newest economic direction," says Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., referring to Charleston's efforts to attract knowledge-based industry.

Eugene Williams, chairman of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, downplays Tramco's relatively few employees. "It's about quality versus quantity when a community like ours begins the long, steady march toward developing a true critical mass of technology companies," he says.

"Charleston is such a natural fit for this company- as a South Atlantic transportation logistics hub, as a great restaurant and food service town and as a supreme place to entertain clients," says Tim Scott, Charleston County Council chairman. "I'm not sure whose decision was easier-them choosing us, or us embracing them."