Steven Smith knew that moving his software company, GCommerce Inc., from New York to Des Moines was a good business decision. He just didn’t realize at the time how good a move it would be personally for himself and his wife, Marina.     “There were a lot of adjustments I had to make, but I think they were all welcome,” said Smith, who at one time endured a two-hour commute to work. Formerly from Iowa, he had gotten used to the New York way of doing things.

“I think people may have found me a bit too aggressive when I got back, but you kind of get in that mindset,” he said. “I think I may have scared people at first. I’ve learned to ratchet back some of those behaviors, because they don’t go over too well here.”     Smith wasn’t sure how Marina, who grew up in Russia and had worked as a model in Manhattan, would adjust.

“I just told her, ‘Don‘t worry; you‘ll love it,’” said Smith, who graduated from Grinnell College and worked in Des Moines before moving to the Big Apple. Having her support was the most important factor in making both a cross-country move and a new business work, he said.     “Without her, I don’t know what I would have done,” Smith said. “If had had an angry wife who had said, ‘Screw you, I’m going back to New York,’ that wouldn’t have worked. … She loves it here.”

The Smiths are among many former big-city residents who are savoring the change of pace that a move to Greater Des Moines provided.

Ed Carroll, who moved to Des Moines two years ago from the Detroit area to manage the local UBS Financial Services Inc. brokerage office, said he was surprised by how “white-collar“ Iowa was compared to Michigan, and by how many of his neighbors had also moved to Iowa from out of state.

For Carroll, who grew up in Queens, N.Y., there was also a big friendliness factor to get used to.

“On the first weekend, we couldn’t get over how many people said hello to us and waved to us,” he said. “Now, we’re used to it.”

Paula Morales, a senior research associate with Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. in Johnston, moved in December from Santiago, Chile, where she had begun working for the company.     Having moved to Ames from a city of 15 million people, “I notice that I don’t miss (the big city),” she said with a laugh. “It’s more peaceful and it’s more secure. There are so many things that (Iowans) take for granted. There, security is such a big issue. It’s very nice to feel comfortable.”

In Chile, it’s normal to work until 7 or 8 p.m., so Morales said she enjoys being able to take off at 5 p.m. to enjoy activities with friends. And Pioneer provides at-work amenities such as a gym, which in Chile would have required an hour’s drive to reach. She also has built-in support through Pioneer’s Latin Network, one of several diversity groups within the company.

Deb Salowitz, who lived for nearly 30 years in Hartford, Conn., said, “I feel much more connected to the community here than I ever did out there.”     Salowitz, whose husband had accepted a position with Principal Financial Group Inc., six years ago, spent a year researching the area before she and her children made the move.

“I think the people who are the most successful in transitioning to a new city are those who do their homework,” said Salowitz, who has since started her own business, Salowitz Relocation Solutions LLC, to assist employers in recruiting and assisting people moving here from outside the state. “And it’s very important to find a facilitator. It’s very difficult to break in if you don’t have an advocate or a sponsor.”

She spent her first six months in Des Moines networking with many of the people she had read about, asking their advice and getting their perspectives about the community.

“You can tell when your networking is effective when after six months, I was introducing people who lived in Des Moines to each other,” she said. “The ‘six degrees of separation’ you read about is significantly less here.”

Those kinds of connections enabled Salowitz to help Rebecca Webb, an international financial consultant moving from Washington, D.C., to establish both professional and community connections here after her husband accepted a job with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines.     “She was kind of able to guide me to the right spots, because she’s been here long enough to discern what kind of companies might be able to use my set of skills,” Webb said. “Not knowing the community when you’re a professional executive is always the biggest hurdle.”

For Webb, who has also lived in New York City in addition to more than a half-dozen cities in developing countries on extended assignments, Des Moines was a big change of pace.

“I’m used to a different pace, a different pace of conversation,” she said. “But since I had traveled abroad, that was very helpful. I could ask myself, is this cultural or is it personality?

“Like New York, there’s an edge in D.C. You’re accustomed to the conversation going a certain way, and at the end you get what you want, but that doesn’t work in Iowa. In Iowa, you don’t have to be in someone’s face.”