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ConocoPhillips named "Deal of the Year" for 2007-2008 

The Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation named ConocoPhillips the "Deal of the Year" award winner at its Annual Report to Investors and Awards Luncheon on June 4, 2008, recognizing the company for its significant economic impact to the region through new job creation and capital investment. ConocoPhillips announced plans in February 2008 to establish a new Global Technology and Corporate Learning Center at the former Storage Technology campus in Louisville, CO.
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ConocoPhillips, the country’s third-largest energy company and number five on Fortune magazine’s top 500 companies list, purchased the 432-acre site for $55.6 million. The company will raze and rebuild the campus to make way for a global technology center that will be the hub for its research and development in making liquid fuels from renewable sources. ConocoPhillips will also create a worldwide learning center at the site where it will bring thousands of employees each year to train on new energy technology applications. The new campus will be operational by 2012.

Additional major company relocations and expansions:

  • ABSL Space Products, a manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries for the aerospace industry, expanded in early 2008 in Longmont. Company officials plan to employ 35 to 50 people at the new site. ABSL, which also has an office in Boulder, is a supplier to Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boeing, and the U.S. Air Force.

  • Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc., a developer of state-of-the-art, thinfilm photovoltaic modules, announced in February 2008 the purchase of a large-scale manufacturing facility to house the company’s new world headquarters and commercial manufacturing operations in Thornton. The plant has 120,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space. The expansion is expected to create approximately 300 manufacturing jobs.

  • Atkins Nutritionals moved its headquarters to Denver in early 2008 from Melville, N.Y. Atkins, which was bought by East Coast private-equity firm North Castle Partners, moved into 22,000 square feet in downtown Denver. The Denver Atkins office employs about 25 people, and the company plans to hire 10 more, including staff in finance and marketing.

  • AVA Solar, a Colorado State University-created startup, announced plans in early 2008 to open a facility in Longmont where it will mass-produce low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels. AVA's factory, which will transform ordinary window glass into solar panels, will be operational by the end of 2008 and will employ up to 500 people.

  • Berry Petroleum announced in March 2008 that it will relocate its corporate headquarters to Denver from Bakersfield, CA. Company officials say the move is the result of increased activity in the Rockies and the fact that Denver is a recognized center for energy companies. 

  • Charles Schwab reportedly plans to consolidate some of its Phoenix and San Francisco operations in Denver. The company currently occupies offices in downtown and southeast Metro Denver, and company officials are reportedly seeking additional southeast office space. The move could bring as many as 500 financial services jobs to the region.  

  • Clear Skies Solar, Inc., a leading developer of solar energy products and a full-service solar power integration provider, announced in April 2008 that it would open a new office in Golden to provide operations in the entire Colorado region and ultimately deliver engineering support to accommodate its growth in the Southwest.
     

  • Cochlear Americas, the world’s leader in advanced hearing solutions, signed a long-term lease agreement in early 2008 to relocate its U.S. headquarters to Centennial. Cochlear Americas will occupy more than 74,000 square feet of space, consolidating the company's two separate Englewood facilities and moving 200 corporate executive and operations employees into one location by the end of June 2008.

  • The Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory announced in April 2008 the creation of the Center for Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion (CRSP) to find ways to directly convert the sun's energy to low-cost electricity and fuels. CRSP will be dedicated to basic and applied research at the Collaboratory's four member institutions, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

  • Constant Contact, Inc., a leading provider of e-mail marketing and online surveys for small organizations, announced in June 2008 plans to open a second office in Loveland, which marks the company’s first expansion beyond its current corporate headquarters in Waltham, MA. By the end of 2008, the company expects to grow the Colorado office to 50 customer operations personnel. Constant Contact will begin its operations in temporary offices in July before moving to a newly constructed 50,000 square-foot office building in the first half of 2009.

  • Covidien Ltd. – formerly Tyco Healthcare – broke ground in May 2008 on an expansion of its Boulder campus. The 55,000-square-foot addition will house some of Covidien’s 1,437-person staff plus a new facility where surgeons can test the company’s medical devices and supplies. Covidien consolidated its Valleylab and Nellcor Puritan Bennett divisions under one name last year.

  • Cricket Communications Inc. relocated over 200 corporate jobs in 2007 to Greenwood Village from San Diego, expanding the company's employment in Metro Denver to 300. According to Cricket officials, Metro Denver is an attractive expansion location due to the region's large telecom workforce, affordable cost of living, and convenient travel from Denver International Airport.

  • DirectTV, the nation's largest satellite-TV provider, added 1,000 jobs in 2007, making Denver the hub of its sales and service support.

  • eCollege.com's headquarters returned to Denver in late 2007. eCollege.com was founded in Denver in 1996 but moved its headquarters to Chicago in 2005. London-based Pearson Plc., the world’s largest educational publisher, has purchased the software developer and will move its headquarters back to Denver, where eCollege.com currently employs 250 people.

  • Google expanded its presence in Boulder in early 2008 with its relocation to the former Noodles & Company headquarters building in Boulder. An estimated 75 employees work at the 23,000-square-foot building.

  • IBM Corp. constructed an $86 million, 80,000-square-foot expansion at its Boulder campus that will serve as a major hub for its global services division and as an energy-efficient, "green" computing hub. IBM's Boulder 300,000-square-foot campus employs 3,400, making it one of IBM’s largest data center operations in the world.

  • Jackson Life Insurance Company moved its operations in 2008 to the Denver Tech Center to accommodate future growth. The Michigan-based company has grown its local workforce to 650 employees since it began operations in Denver in 1995 and expects to add another 400 local workers over the next several years.

  • Kaiser Permanente announced plans in June 2008 to bring a national customer service division employing 200 to the region. Currently located in Ft. Worth, TX, Kaiser Permanente’s Consolidated Service Center (CSC) will move a portion of operations to California and the remaining functions will relocate to Colorado.

  • Lufthansa launched a new nonstop flight from Denver to Munich in April 2007, with the Metro Denver EDC providing $200,000 to support the flight. With an annual economic impact of $108 million, the international flight will be a catalyst for commerce between the Metro Denver region and Bavaria, and provide the region's companies increased access to Europe. 

  • Nestle Waters North America announced in 2007 its expansion into the Denver market by opening a 200,000-square-foot production facility. Officials noted that locating a plant in Denver is a "strategic" decision based on a growing regional customer base. Nestle Waters has hired 42 people, with plans to grow to 60.

  • Quark Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in California, is using $27 million in new funding to grow the clinical development arm of its business and add to its Boulder staff. The company is working on a treatment for macular degeneration and a drug that prevents surgery-related kidney damage. The company says its local workforce could grow to 25 positions by the end of 2008.

  • Qwest Communications opened its third CyberCenter in Metro Denver in late 2007. The 85,000-square-foot state-of-the-art Internet data center is anchored by Fox Interactive Media.

  • Renewable Energy Systems Americas, Inc. (RES-Americas), one of the country's leading wind farm developers, announced plans in March 2008 to move its corporate headquarters from Austin, TX to Broomfield. The company will relocate 70 jobs from Texas in addition to making 70 local hires.

  • The Revere Group, a global business and technology consultancy owned by the Japanese technology firm NTT Data, established its new western regional headquarters in Denver in 2007. Revere selected Denver for its strong information technology base, central geographic location, vibrant economy, and international airport. The company has established a new office in the Denver Tech Center (DTC) area.

  • Seagate, a manufacturer of hard-disk drives, added 100 jobs in late 2007 at its Longmont design center, brining total employment at the site to 1,700 people.

  • Siemens Energy announced in June 2008 that it will establish its U.S. wind turbine R&D competence center in Boulder. The facility is expected to employ an estimated 50 people and will focus on atmospheric science research, aerodynamic blade design, structural dynamics, and wind turbine dispatch prediction and reliability.

  • United Launch Alliance (ULA), a new 50/50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin to combine the companies expendable launch vehicle business, established its corporate headquarters in Centennial in early 2007. The new partnership will employ 1,500 people, combining the production, engineering, test, and launch operations associated with U.S. government launches of Boeing Delta and Lockheed Martin Atlas rockets.

  • Vestas Wind Systems opened its first North American manufacturing plant in Windsor in March 2008. The $62 million, 400,000-square-foot facility will produce 1,200 wind turbine blades a year, eventually providing 650 manufacturing jobs in Northern Colorado. In addition, Vestas announced in May 2008 plans to expand its already large investment in Colorado with the addition of a nearly $250 million manufacturing plant to build the steel towers that hold up its wind turbines.

  • Vodafone, the world's leading mobile telecommunications company, announced in 2007 that it will relocate its U.S. headquarters from Walnut Creek, CA to Denver. Vodafone Americas, with 45 percent ownership of Verizon Wireless, will employ around 20 people. Based in the United Kingdom, Vodafone has nearly 200 million customers and equity interests in 25 countries.

  • VMware, a Palo Alto, CA-based software company is expanding its presence in Broomfield with the lease of 50,000 square feet in the Interlocken Business Park. The company anticipates bringing up to 300 new jobs to the site in the next two years. VMware develops software that allows companys to use servers to run operating systems and programs on various PCs.

  • Woodward Governor of Fort Collins plans to add up to 100 new high-paying jobs at a new production line in Northern Colorado for its wind turbine inverter business. Inverters convert a wind turbine's output into electrical power compatible for the grid.

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