Watch a quick video about our renovation and move-in to 90 Blue Ravine in Folsom, CA.
It’s been two months since we moved into our new corporate headquarters at 90 Blue Ravine Road in Folsom, California. The move provides our company with more room to expand and also signals that we're putting down roots and are here to stay.
As the dust settles and we continue to adapt to our new work environment, I had the opportunity to sit down with several members of the leadership team to discuss the move and what it means to Inductive Automation and its customers. Here are some highlights of our conversation.
Creating an Inviting Environment for Team Members and Visitors
Arnell: The new Inductive Automation headquarters is impressive. What are your thoughts on the new building?
Steve: I love it! It's just more spacious — it's how it should be. Everybody, one for one, loves it! Everybody! It doesn't matter who comes through those doors, the reaction is always the same, like, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ It doesn't get any better.
Kristi: The staff was definitely excited when they were toured around the building: seeing our new café, our new game room, and the new office space that gave them plenty of shoulder room to work.
There was a lot of excitement, and being in the bigger, newer space has given us a great opportunity to add a lot of additional areas for employees to collaborate, and I think that it's given teams the opportunity to become much closer as well.
Bobby: The training room is really nice here, and we have this cool feature where we mirror the instructor screen to all of the students so it makes it ridiculously simple for the students to be able to see everything that I'm doing.
Melanie: I just keep hearing over and over that our customers are just blown away with the environment.
Steve’s Personal Commitment to the New Space
Arnell: As employees, we got to witness Steve’s deep involvement in the renovation of the new headquarters. Steve, what motivated you to be so personally involved with the renovation?
Steve: I do this because it's fun. I think part of working on the building was that it's fun, and the business, the things we do, are fun. I just had a meeting with Carl and Colby about the future of the software, it's fun. I just sit there thinking to myself, this is a cool job.
I wanted the building to be exactly the way I wanted it. I personally got involved in the HVAC system and the reason I did that was to use Ignition. It is what they call “eating your own dog food” in the industry. I've been away from integration for several years now, but this allowed me to keep my feet on the ground and not forget where we came from.
The new building feeds my passion as an integrator and the drive to make sure things work.
Don: Steve's an integrator and he's been an integrator for over 30 years. If I see him get involved in a project, there's a gleam in his eye and excitement, and he wasn't going to let anyone else be the integrator on this building.
Steve had a vision of what the building had to be and that vision had to be at a level of excellence, the same kind of vision that drives the Ignition platform.
I think it makes a statement about our CEO that he's not driven to be ‘good enough’; he is interested in excellence, in being the best so that our customers get the best solution possible.
Melanie: The passion Steve has shown with the renovation not only captures his passion as the creator of the software, but also as the leader of our team.
Building Towards the Future
Arnell: Any additional thoughts about the move and what it means for the future?
Steve: The vision is not to sell out. The vision is not to do anything to branch out and do some other business. It's to keep doing what we’re doing on a much larger scale. Right now we are poised for a rocket ride and my vision is that we do become the de facto standard.
Bobby: This move is huge because this building means we are now a permanent resident instead of hopping around from space to space.
The building is three times the size of what we had, so we really are planning to grow into our space. It really shows me that the company is thinking about growing and expanding and doing really big things.
Melanie: I feel like we have a really good model and a really good foundation to keep growing and to keep leveraging our strengths. We can concentrate on knowledge growth ... I think the company overall has done a really good job at that, and that is one of our core values, but I think this building allows us to do that even more.
Don: It's a great feeling of pride and confidence when you're representing the outreach of our company, knowing that it comes from an incredibly great foundation, like this office represents, and that empowers us going forward into the future.
Come Visit Us Soon
Our new headquarters opens up a world of possibilities and we can’t wait to share our excitement. We invite you to visit the next time you're in the area. Also, you can register for an Ignition training class in our new, state-of-the-art training facility; just check out our training schedule to find the best dates for you. And don’t forget to mark Sept. 17-19 on your calendar for the 2018 Ignition Community Conference here in Folsom. Whenever you get a chance to visit, please tell us what you think of our new headquarters in the comments below. We hope to see you soon!
