SEBASTIAN – A second high-tech firm looking to establish a national headquarters is moving into a industrial park just outside Sebastian’s city limits.
On the suggestion and recommendation of recent new-comer NetBoss Technologies, SMI Telecoms LLC has decided to co-locate on 102nd Terrace, just off County Road 512 and across from Vero Lake Estates.
To help seal the deal, the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a $169,000 jobs grant to be paid to SMI Telecoms over the next five years as the firm hires and retains 25 employees.
With an international headquarters in London, offices in India and Singapore, and a sales office in New York, CEO Phil Brooks told the commission that they are looking to create a US headquarters away from competing interests.
NetBoss, he said, would be a partner – not a competitor.
“We’ve had a lot of dealings with them,” Brooks said of NetBoss Technologies.
NetBoss monitors wired and wireless networks and prompts alerts when something affects those networks. SMI Telecoms works to fix the problems within the networks.
Helene Caseltine, economic development director for the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce, credited NetBoss CEO Jim Odom for bringing in SMI Telecoms. She said that the Chamber encourages local businesses to reach out to their colleagues and vendors – to talk up Indian River County.
“And in this case, it worked,” Caseltine said.
Brooks plans to bring on 19 employees to staff the new national headquarters within the next 18 months. The remaining staff will be hired sometime after that.
“Our plans at the moment are very conservative,” Brooks said. “These are small acorns.”
He said the company is confident that the local job pool has the potential for local hires as well as the ability to attract qualified personnel from elsewhere.
Brooks told commissioners that SMI Telecoms wanted to locate its headquarters away from other, more-established tech-rich areas, because such areas tend to attract employees that jump from company to company.
Even the London-area headquarters, he said, is located 70 miles outside the major city.
Two other elements were key to SMI Telecoms’ decision to move to Sebastian – tourism opportunities and the weather.
“Customers are quite keen to come here,” Brooks said, relaying what Odom had shared with him.
The sunshine, too, was a draw.
“For an Englishperson, that’s a lot,” he said.
Commissioner Peter O’Bryan said that this move by SMI Telecoms is the fruit of the county’s labor from the last five years – working to become more business-friendly and creating the jobs grant program.
He said that, though the county is not attracting the more rare 400-job businesses, they are attracting the high-tech, fast-growing smaller firms.
And, as for calling Sebastian its national headquarters, O’Bryan said he’d like SMI Telecoms to consider making it their global headquarters.
“That’s just phenomenal,” he said of the national headquarters plan.
