Fairfax County wins seventh Fortune 500 headquarters

The Northern Virginia economic engine got some added fuel yesterday with the announcement that Fairfax County has won a seventh Fortune 500 corporate headquarters, potentially creating 1,200 jobs.

SAIC Inc., a federal contractor that already employs about 17,500 people in the Washington area, announced it has moved its corporate headquarters from San Diego to the company's Tysons Corner campus in McLean, effective immediately.

The corporate headquarters' move is the latest of several big economic-development wins for Fairfax, where unemployment has increased in the downturn but remains low at 4.8 percent.

Since 2007, Fairfax has attracted other corporate headquarters including Hilton Worldwide, which relocated its headquarters in Tysons Corner in August from Beverly Hills, Calif. Automaker Volkswagen also moved its U.S. headquarters from Michigan to Fairfax County last year.

State officials said the SAIC relocation would create about 1,200 jobs in the next three years.

SAIC spokeswoman Melissa Koskovich said that figure represents the number of new hires the company expects to make in Northern Virginia, primarily in scientific, engineering and technology-related jobs.

Koskovich said she had no information on the salary ranges for those jobs.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership said SAIC would pay an average of $106,260. That average, however, includes salaries for top-level executives, skewing the figure upward.

"Many of these are IT jobs and many are related to federal contracting, so they will be pretty highly paid, and they are also long-term," said Jerry Gordon, president of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. "These are the kinds of jobs that kids coming out of college want to compete for. It helps us attract an even stronger labor force."

SAIC employs 4,300 people in San Diego, including 900 at its former headquarters office. About 20 of the company's corporate staff may move to the McLean headquarters, Koskovich said.

The company said it also expects to invest $25 million to upgrade the campus. Virginia is providing $1.5 million for infrastructure improvements, which will be matched by Fairfax.

SAIC also could get an additional $7 million in incentives if the company meets performance targets, including creating at least 400 jobs and investing $5 million. The payments would come in five annual installments starting in three years.

The headquarters move comes after SAIC's chief executive, Ken Dahlgren, recently retired. SAIC's new CEO, Walt Havenstein, formerly headed Rockville, Md.-based BAE Systems Inc. and has been working primarily in the Washington area.

Havenstein said in a statement that the company decided to move to Northern Virginia to bring its executive leadership team closer to its federal government customers in Washington.

SAIC reported $10 billion in revenue for its most recent fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31.

The company drew about 95 percent of its sales from contracts in technology, engineering and other services for government agencies, including the departments of Defense and homeland security, according to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company said it has benefited from increased government spending since 2007 on homeland security, defense, intelligence and information-technology outsourcing.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's office also said yesterday that six other technology, distribution and health-care companies in Fairfax County were planning to expand their operations, creating 334 jobs in the next three years.

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or .