Viking Will Move Soon to Rancho Santa Margarita

Viking Components, one of the country’s largest computer memory makers, said Tuesday that it will move soon to Rancho Santa Margarita, the planned community that is losing two of its largest corporate residents.

Viking officials disclosed the move a day after Lockheed Martin said it would close its Aeronutronics plant there, eliminating 750 jobs.

Viking said it plans to move its headquarters, which has more than 300 people in several buildings in Aliso Viejo’s Pacific Park, to a larger building formerly occupied by Unisys in Rancho Santa Margarita. Unisys has moved its computer assembly operations out of Rancho Santa Margarita, eliminating 250 jobs.

Viking officials say their move, which is scheduled for next March, is needed to support the company’s rapid expansion. In the last year, Viking has more than doubled the size of its staff, acquiring one of its Laguna Hills-based suppliers of memory modules, establishing a new European headquarters in Dublin and adding sales personnel throughout the U.S. to support the increased volume of memory upgrade products it is producing.

“Our volume has tripled this year,” said Joe Stafford, Viking’s chief financial officer. Last year, the company, which competes heavily with Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology, generated about $267 million in sales. This year, although sales volume is way up, officials expect price slashing in their niche to keep sales to $300 million.

Viking buys memory chips from overseas suppliers and assembles them on circuit boards that go into computers. Stafford said the larger facility will allow the company to expand to markets that it has not targeted previously. He declined to elaborate.

Viking has been headquartered in Aliso Viejo for about five years, he said. In the next few days the company is expected to sign a five-year lease at the building on Avenida de las Banderas in Rancho Santa Margarita.

Officials with RSM Management Co., the manager of Rancho Santa Margarita, said the move is great news for a community facing the corporate departures.

“It’s better for us to have the jobs in our town than elsewhere,” said Raymond Polverini, vice president of sales and development for RSM Management. “We’re pleased to have them here.”

As to Lockheed Martin’s exodus from the park, Polverini said he is confident that a new tenant will be found before the company shutters its operations there next year.

“I expect they will not have trouble leasing that building,” he said. “The market is strong for industrial in South County.”

This year, he said, RSM plans to sell 24 acres for office and industrial projects in the 450-acre business park.