Homegrown company promises students high-tech employment

Liquid Web Inc. formally announced plans Tuesday to create 600 computer technology jobs during four years in the Lansing area with the creation of its third Lansing data center.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm commended Liquid Web at a press conference Tuesday for staying in the state.

“Our strategy is we’re diversifying our economy, especially in this area of high tech,” she said.

Founded in 1997, the Lansing-based Web hosting company provides Internet service for about 12,000 clients in more than 100 countries. The new facility at 2703 Ena Drive in Delta Township would hire about 10 employees per month. The 90,000-square-foot data center will house 25,000 Web servers.

“It really helps that there’s a university here as well as (Lansing Community College),” said Liquid Web CEO and founder Matthew Hill.

Depending on a student’s education and training, they can attain some of the higher-paying company positions, Hill said.

Graduates with undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science, telecommunications and business could expect to start out between $50,000 and $90,000 for programming positions, said Travis Stoliker, a Liquid Web spokesman.

But few from MSU may be hired because the university is known for graduating computer programmers, he said. Liquid Web, however, only hires one or two programmers a month, he said.

“We do hire from MSU but it’s a lot fewer proportionally than the people that are actually hired,” Stoliker said.

Liquid Web’s 65 to 70 percent annual revenue growth rate, along with the rise of other Lansing-area computer companies, such as ACD.net and TechSmith Corp., signals a growing computer technology industry in Michigan, compared to the state’s declining automobile industry, Stoliker said.

The company sponsors MSU’s Women in Computing program and works with the computer science department, he said.

Jobs are opening, especially for students coming out of the computer science programs and telecommunication programs, said Christopher Knapp, executive director of the Capital Area IT Council.

“But a company like Liquid Web, they’re interesting in that they can take folks that have that creative drive and that interest in technology,” Knapp said.

George Stockman, associate chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, said that although not many college undergraduates will be going to Liquid Web, which may be looking for more highly-trained students, most are getting good offers from similar companies.

Michigan’s second fastest-growing industry is information technology, Stockman said.

“We’re giving them an option other than moving away,” Hill added. “Without companies like Liquid Web, what does anyone graduating with a computer science degree have to do in the region?”

Published on Tuesday, June 24, 2008