"Internally, it was an easy business decision to look at joining some of the other Bechtel companies that were already here," said Michael Kidder, manager of public affairs for Bechtel National.
"To me this is the best of both worlds. There's a great quality of life out here. We can make sure we provide a good working environment for employees and the family, and it's only about an hour drive into the city to work with clients," Kidder said.
The lanes at Bowl America in Gaithersburg are off limits to smokers. The company said Montgomery County's smoking rules hurt business. Virginia is less strict.
(Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post)
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The top driver for companies thinking of being in Washington is their proximity to the customer, and second, access to a workforce," said Thomas G. Morr, managing partner of the Greater Washington Initiative, which markets the Washington area to companies around the world.
The group has conducted a study of prospects' top considerations. "Incentives and cost of doing business were fairly far down the list," Morr said.
"For the kind of businesses that make sense to locate in Washington, it comes down to an educated workforce, quality of life, and cost of living," said Dennis J. Donovan, principal of Wadley Donovan Gutshaw Consulting LLC, which advises large companies on where to locate.
Drawn to Clusters
Jim Ballard bought a new car about a year ago. It already has 25,000 miles on it. The reason: Ballard, chief operating officer of Perot Systems Government Services Inc., spends much of his day driving between the company's six offices around the Washington region.
It was a prime example of why Perot Systems had to consolidate those offices -- and 700 local employees -- in one place. "Whenever we have a meeting in one location, at least two-thirds of the folks have to drive to get to it," Ballard said.
So Perot Systems' government division, an arm of the giant information technology company that does high-tech projects for defense, intelligence, and other government agencies, started looking. Its real estate broker came up with more than 30 properties, from near the Loudoun County border east to Arlington and Alexandria.
Perot executives reviewed the options, and quickly narrowed them to seven office parks, focused in Tysons Corner, the Merrifield area of Fairfax County, and Fair Lakes, farther out Interstate 66 in Fairfax.
The company had a map plotted with every employee's address represented by a dot. From the intersection of Route 50 and the Capital Beltway, they drew a circle with a 25 mile radius, but cut the circle off at the Potomac, to exclude Maryland and the District. About 70 percent of their employees live within the shape remaining.
