Perks Give Area Firms a Silicon Valley Feel

Whether Posh or Quirky, Extras Help Lure Talent To the High-Tech Sector

A Porsche 911 sits outside company headquarters, ready for employees to grab and go for a spin. Inside, a "chill out" room offers an XBox, while the staff lounge displays the kookiest items employees have found on eBay, including a beer-branded model airplane.

The perks and atmosphere may sound like they're from a Silicon Valley startup, with more attitude than profit and executives straight out of college. But Command Information of Herndon is run by experienced managers and claims a solid profit from its work for the government.

The company says it borrowed those West Coast-style fringe benefits to compete for talent in Washington's high-tech job market, which has become so tight that companies are getting creative to make themselves attractive.

"One of our biggest issues is hiring great people," said chief executive Tom Patterson. "With zero unemployment, nobody is hitting the bench saying, 'I hope I can find a job one day.' "

Command Information helps clients upgrade their networks to Internet Protocol Version 6, a higher-capacity system that would enable nearly every device -- including medical dispensers, cars, computers and handhelds -- to connect and work with one another automatically. In its two years, Command Information has attracted $40 million in venture funding.

As the business grows -- it already has $50 million in sales -- Patterson, a former executive at IBM and Deloitte, says he worries about how he'll be able to recruit enough people to meet the company's needs.

For that reason, Patterson has imported some of the other coast's mentality. "For the kind of people we want," he said, "we have to go above and beyond to really make Command an attractive place to work, and that goes beyond just having foosball and being able to shoot hoops, but really there's a lot of career development opportunities."

That was important for David Green, who runs the company's technology lab. "For a start-up, they had excellent benefits," he said. "It's very sociable with our development teams. . . . We have the Porsche, we have video games, we've been having a lot of company picnics."

There are some drawbacks to the Washington region, said Hooman Radfar, founder of McLean online widget maker Clearspring. By being away from Silicon Valley, companies miss out on what he calls the "recombinative innovative effect" -- the idea that a couple of people could be sitting in a bar and spontaneously generate a great product.

Radfar has injected his company with a bit of a Silicon Valley feel, however, with what employees call a "war room" -- a projector for movies, a Nintendo Wii, an Xbox, bean bags and sleeping bags. Most of the company's 35 employees in Washington are in their mid- to late 20s. And he's opened offices on the West Coast.

Despite their similarities to Silicon Valley start-ups, Command and Clearspring have a distinct Washington flavor.

Patterson considered opening Command Information in Silicon Valley, Austin or Boston, but he chose Northern Virginia after receiving venture backing from the District's Carlyle Group. He later received support from Bethesda's Novak Biddle. The investors understood IPv6, he said, but wanted him to take fewer risks with his business plan, scaling back an ambitious marketing effort.