VIRGINIA SPOTLIGHT
Service Sector Delivers
Virginia Econ. Dev. Partnership Hampton Roads Econ. Dev. Alliance Roanoke Valley Econ. Development Partnership Greater Richmond Partnership |
For both headquarters and operations centers, financial services and other firms are finding Virginia conducive to conducting business, whether with D.C. or the world.
The value extends directly to manufacturers themselves. Take motion control product maker Kollmorgen Corp., a subsidiary of Danaher Corp., which has been located in Radford for 45 years and employs 700 at three facilities. The company is now investing more than $2.8 million in a customer support center in the city that will create 71 new jobs.
Some long-established companies are not so fortunate. Capital One Financial Corp., long situated in Richmond, will be cutting around 2,500 jobs in Richmond as part of a company-wide efforts to reduce its work force by as much as 20 percent. That brings the company nearly equal in employment, at 6,500, to Richmond-area company Philip Morris USA, which recently moved its HQ back to Virginia. According to published reports, many Capital One IT jobs are headed to India.
The giant investment by Infineon Technologies in its semiconductor fab is salving the wound, but so are other investments in the selfsame financial services arena. Saxon Capital, Inc., a mortgage lending and servicing company headquartered in the Richmond area, will build next to its existing facility in Henrico County's in Innsbrook Corporate Center with a $17-million investment that will create 234 new jobs over three years. Headquartered in Glen Allen, Va., the company also has facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, and Foothill Ranch, Calif. Company leaders cited employee recruitment and training incentives as important to their decision.
Some consolidations are accruing to Richmond's benefit. Tredegar Film Products, based in Richmond, is closing an operation in Lake Zurich, Ill., and downsizing a facility in Terre Haute, Ind., as it moves 40 R&D and technical personnel into a new facility in Richmond by the end of 2005. The company, a maker of elastic materials for personal and household care products and of aluminum extrusions, will be investing $2.5 million in equipment and leasehold-related improvements, even as it realizes a $1-million asset impairment charge for equipment that will no longer be used.
"We're eager to achieve the benefits that we expect from the alignment of R&D, marketing, sales and senior management at our headquarters in Richmond," said Thomas G. Cochran, president of Tredegar Film Products, in September 2004. "We believe these benefits will include shorter development times, lower operating expenses, and higher sales and profits."
In fact, the company says those operating expenses should be lowered by about $2 million annually after restructuring charges are incurred. Tredegar also has R&D and technical operations in Shanghai, China, and Chieti, Italy, and employs 1,200 worldwide.
On Richmond's southern outskirts in Chesterfield County, Honeywell is investing $20 million in a manufacturing expansion, and Virginia Credit Union is investing $14 million in an operations center expansion.
The services sector is a crucial part of county economies ringing the Washington, D.C., metro. International Business Machines is investing $10 million and adding 1,250 jobs in Fairfax County, Va., that will pay $95,000 a year on average, IBM officials said in late September 2004, announcing a 200,000-sq.-ft. (18,580-sq.-m.) lease adjacent to its existing complex.
"Led by Gov. Warner, Virginia has demonstrated innovative thinking and launched contemporary programs that leverage a first-rate educational system, understand the importance of enhanced homeland security, and bolster economic development approaches for the 21st century," said IBM Vice President of Governmental Programs Christopher Caine.
Company officials said that the new jobs will be part of IBM's public-sector consulting arm, whose clients include the U.S. Department of Defense. The announcement comes at a time when Big Blue is seeking to downplay leaked communications alluding to more offshoring of jobs in its future.
Caine's compliments to Virginia's culture of innovation were echoed 10 days later in a Wall Street Journal editorial by former IBM chairman Louis Gerstner. "American companies don't simply go offshore for inexpensive labor," wrote Gerstner. "They are increasingly going abroad to find skills that aren't available, or plentiful, in their own backyard ... it's time to reconnect education reform to our economic competitiveness."
In the case of Gerstner's old firm, at least, Washington, D.C.'s Virginia backyard had plenty of brainpower and skills to offer.
The value extends directly to manufacturers themselves. Take motion control product maker Kollmorgen Corp., a subsidiary of Danaher Corp., which has been located in Radford for 45 years and employs 700 at three facilities. The company is now investing more than $2.8 million in a customer support center in the city that will create 71 new jobs.
Some long-established companies are not so fortunate. Capital One Financial Corp., long situated in Richmond, will be cutting around 2,500 jobs in Richmond as part of a company-wide efforts to reduce its work force by as much as 20 percent. That brings the company nearly equal in employment, at 6,500, to Richmond-area company Philip Morris USA, which recently moved its HQ back to Virginia. According to published reports, many Capital One IT jobs are headed to India.
The giant investment by Infineon Technologies in its semiconductor fab is salving the wound, but so are other investments in the selfsame financial services arena. Saxon Capital, Inc., a mortgage lending and servicing company headquartered in the Richmond area, will build next to its existing facility in Henrico County's in Innsbrook Corporate Center with a $17-million investment that will create 234 new jobs over three years. Headquartered in Glen Allen, Va., the company also has facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, and Foothill Ranch, Calif. Company leaders cited employee recruitment and training incentives as important to their decision.
Some consolidations are accruing to Richmond's benefit. Tredegar Film Products, based in Richmond, is closing an operation in Lake Zurich, Ill., and downsizing a facility in Terre Haute, Ind., as it moves 40 R&D and technical personnel into a new facility in Richmond by the end of 2005. The company, a maker of elastic materials for personal and household care products and of aluminum extrusions, will be investing $2.5 million in equipment and leasehold-related improvements, even as it realizes a $1-million asset impairment charge for equipment that will no longer be used.
"We're eager to achieve the benefits that we expect from the alignment of R&D, marketing, sales and senior management at our headquarters in Richmond," said Thomas G. Cochran, president of Tredegar Film Products, in September 2004. "We believe these benefits will include shorter development times, lower operating expenses, and higher sales and profits."
In fact, the company says those operating expenses should be lowered by about $2 million annually after restructuring charges are incurred. Tredegar also has R&D and technical operations in Shanghai, China, and Chieti, Italy, and employs 1,200 worldwide.
On Richmond's southern outskirts in Chesterfield County, Honeywell is investing $20 million in a manufacturing expansion, and Virginia Credit Union is investing $14 million in an operations center expansion.
The services sector is a crucial part of county economies ringing the Washington, D.C., metro. International Business Machines is investing $10 million and adding 1,250 jobs in Fairfax County, Va., that will pay $95,000 a year on average, IBM officials said in late September 2004, announcing a 200,000-sq.-ft. (18,580-sq.-m.) lease adjacent to its existing complex.
"Led by Gov. Warner, Virginia has demonstrated innovative thinking and launched contemporary programs that leverage a first-rate educational system, understand the importance of enhanced homeland security, and bolster economic development approaches for the 21st century," said IBM Vice President of Governmental Programs Christopher Caine.
Company officials said that the new jobs will be part of IBM's public-sector consulting arm, whose clients include the U.S. Department of Defense. The announcement comes at a time when Big Blue is seeking to downplay leaked communications alluding to more offshoring of jobs in its future.
Caine's compliments to Virginia's culture of innovation were echoed 10 days later in a Wall Street Journal editorial by former IBM chairman Louis Gerstner. "American companies don't simply go offshore for inexpensive labor," wrote Gerstner. "They are increasingly going abroad to find skills that aren't available, or plentiful, in their own backyard ... it's time to reconnect education reform to our economic competitiveness."
In the case of Gerstner's old firm, at least, Washington, D.C.'s Virginia backyard had plenty of brainpower and skills to offer.
