SAIC’s plans to move its corporate headquarters from San Diego, where the company was founded in 1969, to McLean, VA, may rank as one of the defense contractor’s worst-kept secrets. Today the company also known as Science Applications International Corp. made it official. In a statement issued by the company, new CEO Walt Havenstein says, “This move will formally relocate the corporate executive leadership team closer to our federal government customers enabling us to better respond quickly and efficiently to their critical needs, while maintaining a significant presence in San Diego.”
SAIC spokeswoman Laura Luke tells me by email that the relocation only affects corporate functions, and that roughly 20 corporate positions are being considered for relocation to McLean. These moves would take place by next summer, and operational units directly supporting customers in San Diego will not be affected, Luke says.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine hailed the move, calling SAIC a “technology and defense powerhouse” and disclosing that the company plans to invest $25 million and add 1,200 new jobs in the Northern Virginia area over the next three years. About 17,500 of SAIC’s estimated 45,000-employee workforce already works in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area.
SAIC ranks among a handful of Fortune 500 companies in San Diego. The company had annual revenues of $10.1 billion for its fiscal year that ended Jan. 31.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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