Business And Innovation In Our Area

Congressman Alan B. Mollohan was guest speaker at the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation's Roundtable breakfast Monday morning and brought the kind of news everyone likes to hear -- jobs are coming here.

About 230 jobs initially, thanks to an El Segundo, Calif.-based company taking out a lease on 3,500 square feet of space at the Alan B. Mollohan Innovation Center beginning Nov. 1 that should employ between 25-30 people after start up.Also, Lockheed Martin-Fairmont State College is constructing a 30,000-square-foot building near the Innovation Center where 200 will be employed by the time full-production starts, sometime next summer. The center is slated to open in February.

A long parcel of property was recently bought near the Innovation Center. This tract, which spans 133 acres, will be reserved for development for high technology companies and in return, will provide many high-tech jobs, Milov said.

Computer Sciences Corp. will lease 3,500 square feet of space at the Innovation Center. This company serves as a computer-aided acquisition and logistics support concern for the U.S. Department of Defense.

"It's CSC's first presence in West Virginia," Mollohan said. "Their initial plans are to recruit a staff of 15 people, mostly from the local area. Graduates of Fairmont State College and West Virginia University will be targeted."

"With this lease, Innovation Center will be at 95 percent capacity, and within the next two months, will be at full capacity," the congressman said.

"The staff will grow to more in time," said Laurance A. Milov, president and chief executive officer of the WVHTC Foundation. "Its a lot more space than just 25 people need to work. We expect more to be hired after start-up is complete."

The Lockheed Martin-Fairmont State College complex will be used primarily for a new consolidated scanning service for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Fingerprint cards will be made and processed there.

"Two hundred jobs is a lot of jobs," Milov said. "The jobs will pay between $16,000 to $18,000 a year, and will go up from there."

How does Fairmont State College play into this? Well, FSC will offer both associate's and bachelor's degrees in information systems technology at the complex, Milov said.

FSC has signed a letter of intent to occupy 7,000 square feet of space within this center and will share the space with Lockheed Martin, Milov said.

To say the least, the area near the South Fairmont exit of I-79 has come a long way. Those involved with the development projects associated with the WVHTC applaud Mollohan's vision and initiative. "It was originally proposed that the WVHTC building should be small, cheap, and modest. Maybe a steel building or a modular structure," Milov told the Roundtable breakfast crowd.

"But Congressman Mollohan urged us to think boldly," Milov said, and added that the end result has meant a 100,000-square-foot, near capacity building housing fine high-technology companies and other prestigious concerns.

Computer Sciences Corp. is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol: CSC) and has 700 offices and 45,000 employees worldwide.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a highly diversified global enterprise principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacturing and integration of advanced technological systems. Lockheed Martin employs 170,000 people worldwide and last year, had sales surpassing $28 billion.