SI vs SRI
posted by Brent FinneganI think there’s a bit of confusion over the “high tech firms” moving to (or expanding operations in) H’burg. I’ll admit it, I confused two companies, SRI (Stanford Research Institute), a college-based non-profit R&D company, and SI International, an IT firm that has contracts with the federal government.
In case you made the same mistake as me, you might like to know.
SI International announced a new contract back in September that would create 150 new jobs for the city. Last month, Republitarian was churning the rumor mill about “a tech firm that will be located in the technology park.” The rumor was that SI International was the firm. The only thing is, they’re already here. Yesterday I read something on Elephant Ears which leads me to believe that the employer is not SI, but SRI. This job posting I found on CareerSeeker would support that:
SRI International, in partnership with James Madison University (JMU), is looking to grow its education research work in the Harrisonburg region of Virginia. We are looking for an individual who will be based in the Harrisonburg area to serve as SRI’s liaison and activities manager for an initiative that seeks to assess and develop solutions to issues associated with the education and training of a 21st century workforce for the region.
Anyway, they’re supposed to officially announce it tomorrow. By then this will either be old news, or completely wrong. But you have to admit, SRI and SI are easy to confuse if you don’t know what they are.
UPDATE: It is indeed SRI - confirmed on WSVA. Just remember you read it here first (unless, of course, you saw the Elephant Ears post on Tuesday).
-finnegan
posted: December 13th, 2006 by Brent Finnegan
filed under FYI, growth & construction, news & meta-news, technology.
Comments: 13
Comments
Comment from davidtroyer
Time: December 14, 2006, 9:02 am
I personally find the correlation between ONE Harrisonburg “Based” SRI Job Opening and SRI plopping down some HQ tenuous at best. Anyhow, I look forward to Kaine’s annoucement at 11, there has to be a better way… right?
mmm… “a better way”, got a nice ring, eh?
Comment from finnegan
Time: December 14, 2006, 9:23 am
Yeah, everyone at the city is making a big deal of the announcement, so maybe it’s something else. Microsoft? Toyota? Six Flags? … Mmm, probably not.
Comment from davidtroyer
Time: December 14, 2006, 9:39 am
hmmm…. hopefully another wal-mart. or at least another wal-mart distribution center.
Comment from Gxeremio
Time: December 14, 2006, 9:47 am
Perhaps a large new stoplight manufacturing plant? An enormous truck stop? A gigantic complex of foreign consulates (now THAT would be cool)?
Comment from finnegan
Time: December 14, 2006, 9:51 am
See what I mean when I said the city is making a big deal about this?
Apparently the feds have decided to relocate the nation’s capital from DC to H’burg. Pretty amazing.
Comment from davidtroyer
Time: December 14, 2006, 10:06 am
when I said wal-mart distribution center, I really meant it. They are going to start to prefab these boxes and send ‘em out by the truckload. With the state’s lack of unionized construction and so many willing workers, where better than Rockingham County? Until they figure out how to outsource it, of course ;-)
Comment from Josh
Time: December 14, 2006, 11:19 am
SRI will be building a Center for Drug Research here.
Comment from davidtroyer
Time: December 14, 2006, 11:36 am
Comment from finnegan
Time: December 14, 2006, 11:39 am
Confirmed on WSVA:
Governor Kaine announced this hour that SRI is coming to Harrisonburg. The Company will Develop a statewide Pharmaceutical research program. The firms website is already recruiting positions. It will be located in the Harrisonburg…more to come visit http://www.sri.com
I knew SVA would be the first to have it on the web.
Don’t you love how the Virginia blogosphere is so cross-referential? I do. News travels fast.
Comment from briggman
Time: December 14, 2006, 1:16 pm
I loved how WSVA cut me off this morning when I posed the question:
Have you ever heard of the Stanford Research Institute?
And I also liked how the Governor and everybody were patting themselves on the back because there were no leaks…guess everything posted here and on GOPHokies blog didnt count.
Comment from finnegan
Time: December 14, 2006, 9:37 pm
I was at the press conference this afternoon, and again, they kept saying how glad they were that no one knew about it until Kaine’s speech.
I generally find political press conferences ridiculous. Every local office-holding politician gets up at the podium to say exactly the same thing.
Comment from finnegan
Time: November 30, 2007, 8:50 am
Construction is set to begin next week on SRI’s new Center for Advanced Drug Research. Governor Tim Kaine and other community leaders will be in Rockingham County to break ground on the new facility next Tuesday. It has been nearly a year since SRI announced it would build in the Rockingham Center for Research and Technology.
Pingback from hburgnews » So long, 2007
Time: December 20, 2007, 1:01 pm
[...] The SRI announcement: It was a game of “guess who,” followed by analysis and debate of what impact the [...]
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