By Calvin Biesecker
SAIC [SAI] yesterday said it has relocated its corporate headquarters to the company’s facilities in McLean, Va., from San Diego, effectively moving the corporate executives closer to their federal customers.
The move only involves the relocation of about 20 corporate positions and is expected to occur next summer. Additional staff may move as well. The company has about 4,300 employees in the San Diego area, including 3,400 who work in line organizations supporting customers and about 900 corporate staff, an SAIC spokeswoman told Defense Daily. The company has about 17,500 employees in the Washington, D.C. area.
Operating units that directly support customers in San Diego will not be affected by the move.
SAIC had already relocated its corporate communications from San Diego to Northern Virginia in the past few years and installed its investor relations team in McLean in 2006 prior to the company going public later that year.
Walt Havenstein, SAIC’s new CEO, said the move will allow the corporate leadership team to more “quickly” and “efficiently” respond to the “critical needs” of their federal customers.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) said that SAIC plans to invest $25 million as part of the location and create 1,200 new jobs in Virginia over the next three years.
Virginia ponied up $8.5 million in economic development funds to help secure the move to the state.
SAIC was ranked 11th in terms of federal prime contract dollars in FY ’08 with $5.9 billion according to usaspending.gov. Only two of the companies ranked ahead of it–Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics–are headquartered in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.