Suffolk company creating 100 jobs in expansion

By jon w. Glass
The Virginian-Pilot

SUFFOLK - A homegrown defense-contracting company launched in 2003 by two brothers announced a $4 million business expansion Tuesday that will bring 100 new high-tech jobs to northern Suffolk.

EchoStorm Inc., which provides near real-time video data services to the military - including troops in Iraq - has experienced "utterly explosive growth" in the past year, company president David Barton said.

The company, which now employs about 35, plans to move from a 2,300-square-foot office into 15,000 square feet of space in the new Bridgeway Technology Center III in Suffolk's Bridgeway Commerce Park.

The park is in the heart of an emerging technology corridor near Interstate 664 that has grown up around the U.S. Joint Forces Command's complex.

EchoStorm's new office is across the street from defense contractor giant Lockheed Martin's Center for Innovation, open for about a year, and is near other buildings that house such industry icons as Raytheon, General Dynamics Corp. and Science Applications International Corp.

Barton said Joint Forces Command is EchoStorm's largest customer.

"Bridgeway is turning out to be a technology hub for the area," Barton said. "The major players are already over here. It just made sense for us to be here."

The jobs EchoStorm is creating will be for highly skilled and high-salaried engineers. Barton described the jobs as primarily senior level positions that would carry average annual salaries of about $100,000.

"We are looking for the best and the brightest," he said. "We really need superstars and rock stars to achieve our goals."

It's possible the company will wind up adding more jobs beyond the 100 anticipated, he said.

The company, which began life as a start-up tenant in the Hampton Roads Technology Incubator, is the first tenant in Bridgeway Technology Center III. It now is in Suffolk's Harbour Breeze Professional Center and expects to move into its new office by January, Barton said.

Suffolk officials and Continental Properties of Virginia Beach, the developer of the new 72,000-square-foot office building, held a reception for EchoStorm at the commerce park to celebrate the company's arrival. Suffolk Mayor Linda Johnson, in a statement, called the company's expansion there "a true testament of how our city and region are becoming a national hub for high-tech, defense-related businesses."

Tom O'Grady, the city's director of economic development, said there now are about 20 defense contractors working in the corridor near Joint Forces Command. Continental Properties has developed two other office buildings in Bridgeway Commerce Park.

Barton said he expects EchoStorm to exceed $20 million in revenue this year. It specializes in offering customers video services that allow them to search and analyze video streams in near real-time. In Iraq, troops are deploying video cameras in unmanned aerial vehicles to survey surrounding areas.