TRW Computer Center Is Relocating to Texas : Consolidation: Firm mulls lucrative offers from Anaheim and Orange but decides to link operations with a facility near Dallas.
TRW Inc. said Monday that it will move its computer center in Anaheim and most of its 105 jobs to a site near Dallas to save money.
The company said that it had received lucrative offers to stay in the county from the city governments of Anaheim and Orange but that the enticement of linking its local operations with another computer center in Richardson, Tex., proved too strong.
“For our data center operations, the cost of doing business is substantially lower in the Dallas area,” said D. Van Skilling, executive vice president of TRW Information Systems & Services in Orange. “Ultimately, we have chosen to consolidate our data center operations in the Dallas area because it makes overwhelming economic sense to do so.”
The TRW facility, which has operated in Anaheim since 1970, will move in the next 18 months. The current site will be offered for sale, TRW spokeswoman Susan Murdy said.
About 90 of the Anaheim facility’s employees will be offered jobs at the combined center in Texas, Murdy said.
The decision comes two months after TRW accepted an offer from Orange to keep its larger credit reporting division, with more than 1,000 jobs, in Orange, rather than moving to Dallas, Cleveland or Denver. To woo the information giant, the city Redevelopment Agency agreed to pay $2 million--$200,000 a year in operating subsidies for a decade.
The division is one of the three largest credit bureaus in the nation, keeping tabs on the bill-paying habits of 170 million Americans. Most of the division is concerned with marketing, services and other business functions.
The computer center on Katella Avenue, a sprawling high-tech facility that takes up a building the size of a small department store, was another matter. TRW wanted to consolidate and found that it could save millions of dollars on real estate, electrical power and labor in Texas.
Anaheim City Manager James D. Ruth said the city offered sales tax discounts to give it a better deal on land, and it volunteered to help TRW try to cut its more than $1-million-a-year electric bill.
Orange tried to lure the facility, as well, offering $50,000 a year in subsidies for the computer center. And Fullerton officials suggested a site in their city.
“We knew we had a real uphill battle” to keep the facility, “and we’re disappointed but we understand,” Ruth said.
Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter said the bad news came in a 9 a.m. telephone call from TRW’s Van Skilling, ending what had been a “full-court press” to keep the business in Anaheim.
“God, it hurts,” Hunter said Monday. “It’s just real simple. The bottom-line operating costs are much smaller in Richardson, Tex. We can’t compete until this state does something about the cost of doing business in California.”
Anaheim Councilman William D. Ehrle called the company’s announcement a “classic example” of state factors working to drive business out of California. “Unfortunately, there goes another good business. Anaheim is the big loser in this,” he said.
