The following is the text of a speech given by Idexx Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Ayers announcing Idexx’s expansion last week.
Good morning and let me welcome everyone here to Idexx Laboratories. We are here today to mark a watershed moment in the history of Idexx, and, we believe, a milestone for the city of Westbrook and the state of Maine.
When Idexx started as a Maine company in the early 1980s, new technology was beginning to revolutionize biological science. We launched our initial line of poultry diagnostics in 1984, from a small building on Portland’s waterfront, with a staff of less than a dozen people.
Our mission then was simple yet profound – to be a great company by creating exceptional value for our employees, customers and shareholders through worldwide leadership in our businesses. Since that time our innovations have captured market-leading positions in several segments of the veterinary medical market, as well as water, production animal and dairy testing. Along the way in 1991, we moved our operations to leased space in a small section of this facility – in fact not even including the spot where we stand today.
Today, headquartered here in Westbrook, Idexx Laboratories is a global leader in our markets and a publicly traded stock on the NASDAQ. From our roots as a small entrepreneurial venture founded in southern Maine, we have expanded to more than 45 locations, in 17 states and 13 countries around the world, with a staff of over 3,000 people and projected animal sales in 2006 of $700 million. If you own a pet, drink milk, eat chicken, pork or beef, or drink the municipal water, you in all likelihood have benefited from the Idexx technology developed or manufactured here in Westbrook, Maine.
As our company has grown, we have added jobs and facilities around the world, including several expansions right here. In this leased facility in Westbrook and a satellite location nearby, we provide careers for 1,200 employees, with an average paycheck that is 50 percent higher than the statewide average. We have many of Maine’s best and brightest individuals pursuing their careers at Idexx, in a variety of fields including life sciences, biotechnology, engineering, marketing, operations, manufacturing and logistics, information technology, human resources, finance and law. And because of our growth, we are looking to recruit additional high caliber talent for every one of these career areas.
As we continue to grow, we hope that a number of our new employees will come from right here in Westbrook. We support the local Westbrook school system so that teachers and students will know more about our goals and needs, and we can work with them to help prepare students for the jobs of the future.
But as any of our employees can tell you, our leased space here in Westbrook is filled to the brim. And so, for some time, we have been exploring how and where to expand to meet the growth needs of our company.
To that end, we propose an expansion that makes a more permanent commitment to Westbrook and to Maine, recognizing the desire of our Maine-based workforce to continue to live “the way life should be.” We are pursuing the purchase of this entire site, which consists of the land, the space we currently occupy and the additional 130,000 square feet recently vacated by the closure of the Sanmina-SCI manufacturing operations in the remaining part of the building. Future expansion might also entail building on land we own on the opposite side of Eisenhower Drive. You might say that with the purchase of this entire 480,000 square foot facility in Westbrook, Idexx will be going from renter to homeowner, really putting down roots in Westbrook.
Our decision to purchase our existing site, plus our possible future expansion and equipment purchases would entail an investment of more than $100 million in Westbrook over the next 20 years – by far the largest capital project Idexx has ever undertaken. The purchase of the building and complete reconstruction of the currently empty section will make room for up to 500 new jobs in the next five years. While there are a number of steps that need to occur before we implement our plans, we are confident and hopeful that we will be able to move forward with our plans for this building in the next several months.
We would not be able to make an investment of this magnitude if not for the cooperation and support of city of Westbrook officials, Gov. John Baldacci, and the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. They have helped us structure proposals that keep Idexx competitive in Westbrook and Maine, while also benefiting the citizens of Westbrook, and the state overall.
Thank you all for your dedication and assistance in making Westbrook a competitive place to do business. You are helping Idexx to make this our home, and as citizens of Maine we are extremely grateful and proud.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
