THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Virginia is getting good at this.
Earlier this year Motorola announced plans to build a giant computer-chip plant near Richmond, and IBM and Toshiba said they would jointly build one in Prince William County.
On Friday, Gateway 2000 Inc., a Fortune 500 company, announced it would build an $18 million personal-computer manufacturing plant in Hampton that by 1999 would employ 1,000, with an annual payroll of $18.4 million.
Gateway is not as big an economic catch as the two computer-chip plants, but any city would be delighted to get it.
``It's another shining part of our renaissance here in Virginia,'' said Gov. George Allen. ``It's expanding our intellectual frontiers. It's changing the way the world looks at Virginia. It's changing the way we look at ourselves.''
The Old Dominion, state officials have said, is becoming the Silicon Dominion.
And that way lies the future.
It is expected that companies that supply Gateway will want to locate near the Hampton plant. Virginia's reputation as a high-tech state seems certain to grow.
Theodore W. Waitt, Gateway's 32-year-old chairman and chief executive officer, said Hampton was chosen because of the area's skilled work force and the aggressive, pro-growth attitude of state and local leaders. Also, Hampton's mid-Atlantic location was desirable for East Coast sales.
The company's main headquarters and other American plant are in North Sioux City, S.D. ``Why choose Hampton?'' Waitt said. ``We found a community with a lot of the cultural core values we have in South Dakota.''
The company was founded in a barn on Waitt's father's farm in Iowa in 1985. Gateway 2000 sold more than 1 million computer systems last year, with total revenue of $2.7 billion. Analysts expect the company to continue to grow.
Governor Allen gets another feather in his economic-development hat. by CNB