Siebel Plans 500 Jobs for Utah

In what Gov. Mike
Leavitt hailed as the
first major victory of
his "1,000 Days"
economic
development initiative,
Siebel Systems Inc.
on Tuesday
announced it will bring
nearly 500 new
high-tech jobs to Utah
by 2005.

BY BOB MIMS
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

"Siebel Systems’ decision to expand in Utah is
yet one more example of Utah’s ability to attract top
technology firms," Leavitt said. "We are an
emerging capital for technology employment,
investment and entrepreneurship, and this
announcement accelerates our progress."
Siebel, the San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of
electronic business software applications, also will
build a new 30,000-square-foot enterprise data
center. The facility, to be built in northwest Salt
Lake City, will augment the company’s
125-employee call center in Sandy.
The new jobs, most of them high-paying
computer engineering, programming, networking and
security positions, will be phased in over the next
three years. By then, Siebel said it will employ
about 600 in Utah.
Leavitt credited his economic development
staffers for helping lure Siebel to Utah in contacts
that began almost a year ago and were finalized
during the state’s Olympic-related corporate
outreach efforts last month.
"It is through their work that our business today
is conducted," he said. "This is one of many
[victories] that will come, but it is a landmark for us
to have a company of this size and success pattern
as Siebel join the ranks."
Mark Sunday, Siebel’s senior vice president for
information technology, gushed over the 10-day,
partially state-sponsored visit for him and his wife
Alice, and other Siebel executives, including
company chairman and chief executive Thomas
Siebel, during last month’s Winter Games.
The company, second on Fortune Magazine’s list
of "100 Fastest Growing Companies," committed to
expansion in Utah shortly before the Games, but the
Olympic experience sealed Siebel’s enthusiasm for
its investment in the Beehive State.
In addition to the state’s "spectacular beauty and
recreational opportunities," Sunday said, the
Olympic effort also showcased Utah’s "commitment
to excellence, to hospitality and being professional,
doing everything to the highest quality standards."
"Our values — Siebel’s and the state of Utah’s —
clearly seem to be in line," Sunday said. "These are
precisely the reasons that Siebel Systems is
putting a pretty substantial expansion here."
Siebel, which reported $2.05 billion in revenue
last year and employs 8,000 worldwide, opened its
Sandy offices a year ago to provide 24-hour-a-day
technical support to its staff and corporate partners.
The company’s new data center, however, will
attract a work force skilled in what Sunday called
"the very cream of our technology" that will be a
critical facet of Siebel’s efforts to upgrade technical
and networking support for 12 engineering
development locations in the United States, Canada
and Europe.
Sunday emphasized Siebel’s commitment to
Utah was intended as long term, saying the state’s
"highly educated, stable and committed work force"
provided a skilled pool of potential employees from
which it will draw.
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http://www.sltrib.com/03202002/business/business.htm