A fast-growing risk management firm plans to move its headquarters to Research Triangle Park from Baton Rouge, La., and create 430 local jobs over the next six years.
Monday's announcement by IEM, which helps government agencies and private companies prepare for and respond to natural disasters, is the latest in a series of corporate expansions in the Triangle that are providing glimmers of hope in an otherwise dismal economy.
Local and state officials have been courting Madhu Beriwal, IEM's president and CEO, for more than a year.
Beriwal, who founded the company in Baton Rouge in 1985, said Monday that moving to the Triangle will give the company a strategic advantage in recruiting and retaining employees.
"It's very important to be not just where the people are at, but where they want to be," she said.
EMC, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse also have cited the Triangle's educated workforce and quality of life as reasons they announced plans recently to expand in the Triangle and add hundreds of high-paying jobs. Deutsche Bank opened its new Cary office Monday, which is expected to employ more than 300 technology workers within five years.
IEM, which employs 150 people at its Baton Rouge headquarters, plans to begin recruiting immediately in the Triangle and hopes to hire 100 people by the end of next year. As of late Monday, the company had already received more than 70 résumés.
The 430 new jobs will pay average annual wages of $62,778, not including benefits.
IEM was promised more than $9 million in state tax breaks and grants if it meets hiring targets. A $150,000 grant from the One North Carolina Fund is contingent on Durham County and the Durham Chamber of Commerce approving matching local incentives. Durham County commissioners are scheduled to vote on the incentives next month.
Raleigh: no incentives
Raleigh City Councilwoman Mary-Ann Baldwin said city officials were approached earlier this year about approving a similar local incentives package to lure IEM. Baldwin said she supported giving IEM the money when it was discussed in closed session, but a majority of City Council members did not.
"We didn't have the five votes to move forward on it," Baldwin said. "I don't know if incentives made a difference or not, but it certainly sends a message that you want somebody or you don't."
Councilman Thomas Crowder said Raleigh needs to be very cautious with how it deals with incentives.
"We just had Dell, with the state, they came in, received quite a few breaks and incentives and then were gone," he said.
IEM also considered incentive offers from Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, according to filings with the N.C. Commerce Department.
State Secretary of Commerce Keith Crisco and U.S. Rep. David Price both attended Monday's announcement at the headquarters of the Research Triangle Foundation, which runs RTP.
Price, who is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said IEM's work is integral to improving how the country responds to natural disasters.
The majority of IEM's revenue comes from government contracts. IEM's customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.
IEM employs experts in a range of fields, including mathematicians, physicists, atmospheric scientists, English majors, sociologists and psychologists.
Crisco praised Beriwal, 52, who started the company after working on floodplain management and hurricane evacuations for the state of Louisiana. "Absolutely one of the most impressive business people I have ever met," he said.
Work after Katrina
Beriwal grew up in the Indian city of Calcutta and came to the United States in 1978. She borrowed $3,500 to start IEM in 1985. Beriwal said the company is debt-free with revenue increasing by about 29 percent annually.
In 2004, IEM was hired by FEMA to create Hurricane Pam, a computer simulation that looked at what a Category 3 hurricane would do to southeastern Louisiana. A year later, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.
IEM worked with government agencies before the storm hit and then sent its workers to live on the USS Iwo Jima, which docked in the Gulf of Mexico to help the storm's victims.
"It was very traumatic," Beriwal said. "I knew the area. I knew the problem."
Beriwal informed her Baton Rouge employees Monday morning that the company will move to RTP. She hopes most will relocate to the Triangle.
IEM is considering several locations within RTP, Beriwal said, and expects to have all its office operations transferred to the Triangle by the end of next year.
Staff writers Alan M. Wolf, Sarah Ovaska and Jim Wise contributed to this report.
