Grants keep NetApp in RTP

646 jobs planned; incentives were key

Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt.

Executives at Network Appliance said Tuesday that it was their knowledge of the Triangle's work force and experience building a business here that led them to expand in Research Triangle Park rather than Washington state or Pittsburgh.

A county and state incentives package worth nearly $16.3 million also helped.

The California company, which helps companies manage tremendous amounts of digital data, accepted the incentives package Tuesday. At a news conference announcing the company's decision, Gov. Mike Easley confirmed that the company will hire 646 workers over the next four years. The jobs will pay average annual salaries of $94,000.

"This is the way we want to grow in North Carolina," Easley said. "We want high-paying, high-skilled jobs that we won't lose to foreign companies."

NetApp executives said they would build a 130,000-square-foot data center on their site in RTP, where the company has three buildings totaling 530,000 square feet.

The announcement came one day after a state committee voted to offer NetApp an incentives grant worth $15.3 million in exchange for the jobs and an investment worth $41.5 million.

Mark Skiff, director of work place resources at NetApp, said the incentives played a major role in the company's decision to expand in North Carolina.

He said a site in Pittsburgh, where NetApp also has a facility, was in the running. Washington state was also a possibility because the cost of electricity there is much less than in North Carolina.

"It was about a million-dollar difference," he said. "The grant will help us offset the cost."

The Wake County Board of Commissioners agreed Monday to offer NetApp a $933,750, incentives package based on the company's investment in new construction.

It is the second time that NetApp, which first set up an operation locally in 1999, has been promised financial incentives. In 2004, the state promised the company as much as $8.9 million to create 361 jobs over five years. The company met that mark in half the time and now employs more than 600 in the Triangle. It has more than 6,000 employees worldwide.

Ken Hibbard, vice president of engineering, said the company's success reflects the growing demand for data storage worldwide.

"The world we live in is information based," he said. "The product that most companies work with is in fact digital information. For example, the financial industry, entertainment industry with animations ... and medical industry has moved more away from paper to digital storage."

"We see customers increase their storage demand 50 [percent] to 100 percent year over year," Hibbard said.

NetApp customers spend anywhere from a few hundred thousand to well over $50 million to manage data, depending on the type of business, he said.

To receive the full state incentives package, NetApp must keep all of its local workers and add 646 by the end of 2010. Hibbard said the company will begin hiring immediately.

The positions include software engineers, program managers, marketing and sales staff and customer support technicians. The company expects to start construction of the new data center by the end of the summer.