Tupelo lands high-tech company
Daily Journal
By Dennis Seid
TUPELO - In a few years, Tupelo could become the Silicon Valley of the state, home to hundreds of software engineers and programmers working to provide quicker access to information on the battlefield as well as the home.
That's the vision local officials have for Circadence Corp., whose co-founder, president and chief executive officer, Michael Moniz, announced on Friday the opening of a product development and advanced research and development site here.
"In essence, we move data, we move information across the Internet faster," he said. "The technology that was developed 30 years ago for the Internet, people couldn't conceive of what it's being used for today. We've seen great opportunity to greatly improve upon its performance."
The Circadence facility, announced at the Community Development Foundation, will be part of a three-phase project. It will start with about 20 employees who will be involved with product development and testing and customer support for the company's proprietary technology.
Circadense hopes to have 100-150 employees within three years.
Its site in the Journal Business Park on South Green Street will also serve as an advanced research and development center for future software development for both military and commercial use.
Much of the company's technology is used by the Department of Defense under a number of existing contracts, as well as to state and local governments and agencies for Homeland Security purposes.
"We move critical data to the people who need to make decisions more reliably and we make those connections more stable and last longer - that's our area of expertise," Moniz said.
Circadence also has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mississippi State University, establishing a partnership for joint research and development and collaboration on public and private sector opportunities, particularly federal government programs.
"We believe with this partnership we can also attract talented, well-educated young people, engineers, software developers and succeed in addressing our needs," Moniz said.
The company, based in Boulder, Colo., also is working with Itawamba Community College, which will help manage the employee recruiting process and provided workforce training and development programs.
Retired Air Force Lt. General Kenneth Minihan, former Director of the National Security Agency and a member of the company's board of directors, said the work in Tupelo will help troops in the field in the global fight against terrorism.
"Our soldiers in harm's way need both the equipment and information to succeed," he said. "When they're in combat, they need the best information they can get. They get that from entities like Circadence and technology that Circadence presents."
The financial services sector can also benefit from the technology, and company officials said they had promising prospects within the industry.
With Department of Defense contracts in hand, the company is forecasting about $132 million in revenue over a 3-5 year span, with total annual recurring revenue for Tupelo to be about $26.3 million beginning in the third year of operation.
David Rumbarger, president and CEO of the Community Development Foundation, said Circadence will not only provide the type of jobs that the region has longed for, it will provide opportunity.
"The software technicians, the software engineers, the Internet technicians ... these are all the things we would hope to train to that our sons and daughters are getting at Mississippi State, Ole Miss, ICC, Northeast and others," he said. "It also puts those institutions to the test, too, to produce for this particular company.
"We want to make sure that our products and our students and our education are what they can use to grow. Circadence wants to be able to grow to 150 people in three years and we have to be able to meet that high-tech growth."
Contact Dennis Seid at 678-1578 or dennis.seid@djournal.com
Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 7/9/2005 8:00:00 AM, section A , page 1
