Comstock's magazine 1117 - November 2017 | Page 86

FOLSOM & EL DORADO HILLS
corridor have potential to thrive. Accord-
ing to Folsom Chamber of Commerce
CEO Joe Gagliardi, the city’s biggest em-
ployers are in the professional/scientific/
technical services sector.
“This is a positive environment for
growing and locating a business,” says
Andy Morin, mayor of the City of Folsom.
“And of course we’re interested in that
because of all the other vitality that brings
to the city.”
In that vein, the Greater Folsom Part-
nership launched its “Choose Folsom”
campaign to ensure the city’s economic
well-being into the future. The plan re-
volves around five goals: Attract 10 new
companies to the area; see three current
companies expand; garner $400 million
in capital investment; create 3,000 new
jobs. According to Gagliardi, in this first
year since the program’s launched, initial
results are promising: 1,000 new jobs, two
new companies, nine expansions and $80
million in capital investment.
“As we’ve grown and there’s more
variety of business in Folsom, we try to
make the city recession-proof.”
- Andy Morin, Mayor, City of Folsom
“We have to help companies be able
to grow here, and we have to be able to
assist them,” Gagliardi says, which means
being open to a given businesses needs
and challenges.
Intel, PowerSchool, VoxPro and VSP
are some of the bigger-name businesses
in the city. Gagliardi points out that Vox-
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Pro alone has added several hundred jobs
just in the past year. PowerSchool, a soft-
ware company in the public school space,
moved back to Folsom after a brief relo-
cation to Rancho Cordova. And VSP, the
largest vision insurance company in the
nation, developed a manufacturing facil-
ity in Folsom in 2014.
Morin says it’s critical to have a va-
riety of industries that lay roots in the
area, as recessions and changing busi-
ness climates can dramatically impact a
community.
“We want to make sure one com-
pany and industry isn’t monopolizing
the job picture,” he says, adding that
there are high-end tech support com-
panies, manufacturing and technology
giants that diversify the landscape. “We
look to complete a picture of all sorts of
job opportunities.”
Intel considers the area “the gateway
between the city and the mountains,”
with rental rates and housing prices much
lower than the Bay Area and Southern
California. Nearby Sacramento is “an up-
and-coming city for tech companies,”
says Elizabeth Shipley, regional public af-
fairs director at Intel, and the Folsom Intel
campus hosts a healthy demographic of
millennial employees.
According to a Business Journal/Gal-
lup poll, research shows that millennials
want to have “high levels of well being.”
And some of the most important qual-
ities that workers of any age range seek
in a career are available at Intel, Shipley
says. That includes “flexible work hours,
relaxed and casual work environment,
on-campus amenities including a gym
and cafes, a relatively flat hierarchical
structure (ability to pop by the CEO’s
cube is a big bonus),” she says in an email.
With more jobs comes a greater
demand for supportive assets, such as
schools, housing, restaurants and be-
yond, Morin says. A massive mixed-use
housing development — 3,500 acres in
size — is under construction just south
of Highway 50. Dubbed Folsom Ranch,
the project will feature more than 11,000