The US Census Bureau has posted a handy chart showing industries in which Massachusetts leads the nation in terms of sales per capita. (Oh, yes, there are similar charts for every other state as well.)

As of 2002, the Bay State generated more sales per capita than any other state in the categories of “wholesale electronic markets and agents and brokers,” as well as portfolio management, and the manufacturing of navigational instruments. Those were the big three (generating at least $8 billion each in total sales or receipts), but Massachusetts was also tops in automotive glass replacement (not really an export business, so apparently we have a lot of broken windshields here), coin-operated laundries, septic tanks, and “diet and weight reducing centers.”

Elsewhere in New England, the biggest industries in which each state finished first were: “petroleum bulk stations and terminals” in Connecticut, paper manufacturing in Maine, retail trade in mall-heavy New Hampshire, “miscellaneous manufacting” in Rhode Island (how myserious!), and computer manufacturing in Vermont.