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Defender Direct to add 1,100 jobs
(Indianapolis Star, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 31--An Indianapolis-based home technology company that provides security systems and satellite TV service plans to hire at least 300 workers in the city and add 800 more jobs statewide over the next five years.
Defender Direct, the nation's largest distributor of ADT and a top seller for GE Security systems and Dish Network, has about 750 employees nationwide, 400 of whom work in the Indianapolis, Greensburg and Sunman offices.
Company President David Lindsey said the new jobs, part of a $15 million expansion, will pay an average of $18 an hour and will involve sales, customer service and management.
The homegrown company plans the jobs in its three existing cities and possibly a fourth office in an undetermined location that would border I-74. Lindsey started Defender with his wife, Jessica, in 1998.
Defender plans to move its headquarters from a 12,500-square-foot space at 6100 N. Keystone Ave. northeast into 30,000 square feet at 3750 Priority Way in the Precedent Office Complex. The company will have an option at that location for an additional 30,000 square feet.
At least two other states offered Defender Direct incentives to move the headquarters, said Tim Cook, a Katz Sapper & Miller partner who spent about five months helping the company weigh its options. Neither Lindsey, Cook nor Secretary of Commerce Nate Feltman would name the other states in the running -- but Ohio looks likely to have been one of them. Lindsey said the headquarters could have landed there. The company is up for about $425,000 in state and local incentives to expand a call center in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash.
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard congratulated Lindsey for choosing to expand locally instead of elsewhere. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered up to $6 million in performance-based tax credits and up to $345,000 in training grants.
"We're really proud -- really proud -- that you're going to stay here," Ballard said, turning to Lindsey during a news conference at the Statehouse. Gov. Mitch Daniels beamed as he spoke of Defender's growth.
The Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, a division of Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, named the company one of the state's fastest-growing businesses in 2007 with its Indiana Growth 100 award, IEDC said.
The announcement was the latest jobs rollercoaster the state has been experiencing. Last week, Fortune 500 diesel engine specialist Cummins said it will add 500 jobs, most of them in engineering and information technology, over the next two years. In Hancock County, much smaller Freije Treatment Systems said it plans to add 175 people to its 25-person roster by 2010.
On the losing end, car audio manufacturer Harman/Becker Automotive Systems in Martinsville announced it is shuttering operations, tossing 340 out of work by next January.
The announcement also comes days after drug maker Pfizer announced it will lay off 660 workers at its Vigo County plant by midyear. Pfizer decided to stop selling the plant's top product, inhaled insulin, because of disappointing sales.
Daniels said a dynamic economy loses and gains jobs.
"This must be our objective: To build the best environment and then hustle as much as we can to see the growth of new companies like Defender Direct constantly surpass the inevitable erosion of older firms or of products and companies that just don't make it in a very competitive marketplace," Daniels said.
To see more of The Indianapolis Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.IndyStar.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Indianapolis Star
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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