2 Firms to Set Up Local Plants, Add to Professional Ranks

Two companies have announced plans to establish large plants in Ventura County in the fall and to begin recruiting employees immediately to fill mostly high-paying professional jobs.

In one of the moves, Xircom Inc., a fast-growing Calabasas company that claims to be the world leader in producing devices for connecting portable computers with corporate computer networks, has decided to move its 220 Southern California employees to a two-building complex in Newbury Park.

The move, planned for October, will mean an ongoing boon for Ventura County’s job market, according to Xircom spokesman Serge Timacheff. “We expect our revenues to increase 50% in the current year, and our payroll will probably expand at about the same rate,” he said.

Xircom is moving from a 70,000-square-foot building in Calabasas to a complex totaling 130,000 square feet on Corporate Center Drive. Work now being done at another facility in Westlake Village will also be moved to Newbury Park.

Xircom has 280 employees worldwide, including offices in Mountain View, Calif., and Antwerp, Belgium.

The company’s sales in the year that ended Sept. 30 were $82.2 million. Analysts have projected revenues of more than $120 million in the current fiscal year.

In another development, BioSource International Inc., a Camarillo supplier of immunological reagents and test kits used in biomedical research and diagnosis, said it will consolidate all its California operations, including its main production and research facility in Northern California, into a 27,000-square-foot building a block away from its present corporate headquarters in Camarillo.

The relocation and an accompanying production expansion will increase the company’s payroll in Ventura County sixfold, bringing 60 new jobs to Camarillo, according to Investor Relations Director Aspasia Alexander.

“Our business is booming,” she said. “We knew we wanted to centralize and expand, but we weren’t sure whether we’d end up here or in the north.” Lower real estate costs in Southern California helped tilt the decision toward Camarillo, she added.

Alexander said only a dozen people are now employed at BioSource’s corporate headquarters on Flynn Road, but that the payroll will increase when research, production and marketing workers are added. The move into the newly leased facility is scheduled for October.

BioSource acquired its Northern California plant in Burlingame when it merged with Tago Inc. in May, 1993. Only half of the 40 biological scientists, lab technicians and marketing personnel there are expected to move to Camarillo. In addition to replacing those who choose not to relocate, BioSource expects to hire 20 in response to improving business, Alexander said.