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November 17, 2004
HERNDON, Va. -- Calling it the "single largest economic development day in the history of the commonwealth," Gov. Mark Warner announced Wednesday that four companies will create up to 11,000 new jobs in the state, nearly all of them in northern Virginia.
McLean-based management and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which has run out of room to grow in the Tysons Corner area, is adding up to 4,600 jobs at a Herndon office park, with an average salary of $79,000.
"These are the kind of high-paying, knowledge-based jobs that any state, any country would welcome," Warner said at a press conference with Booz Allen Hamilton executives.
Another high-tech firm, San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), will create 4,515 jobs throughout the state, including almost 3,700 in northern Virginia, about 800 in the Hampton Roads region and 21 jobs in Albemarle County near Charlottesville, said Jill Vaughan, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, which helped broker the deals.
Also, Fairfax-based technology company SRA International will add 1,400 jobs in locations in Arlington and Alexandria, and PricewaterhouseCoopers will add 600 jobs in the Tysons Corner section of Fairfax County.
"Northern Virginia is this year really carrying the whole commonwealth on its shoulders economically," Warner said.
He said he hopes the legislature will enact proposals next year that will make it easier to draw employers to more economically depressed areas of the state.
"We're always trying to promote more rural parts of the state. But often we're finding that employers want to stay in northern Virginia" for a variety of reasons, Warner said. "A lot of times we'll offer more incentives to a company to try to locate jobs in, say, Southside Virginia or far southwest Virginia."
Indeed, northern Virginia, with a booming economy and explosive growth that has resulted in crowded roads and schools, may be the one place in the state that is not fully welcoming of 10,000 new high-paying jobs.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald Connolly acknowledged that constituents, "in times of full employment, their first reaction is 'Oh my God, what is this going to do to transportation?"'
But he said residents need to understand that transportation improvements are on the way, including an extension of Metrorail along the Dulles corridor, where many of these new jobs will be located.
"If we created no new jobs, we would steadily go downhill," Connolly said. "An economy is dynamic and you cannot stand still. If you want to see what can happen, go to Flint, Michigan."
Booz Allen Hamilton will begin adding jobs immediately and will add 3,700 to 4,600 jobs in the next five years. The company will receive a $9 million job creation grant, but Vaughan said the grant kicks in only six years after the company has met its job targets.
The new jobs will make Booz Allen the county's largest employer, surpassing Inova Health Systems.
All four companies are receiving workforce training and a special tax credit for business facilities.
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