We were delighted to have the opportunity to assist Facebook with the announcement of its plans to open an office in Seattle. For those of you who missed the news on May 5, Facebook, in conjunction with the Seattle Mayor’s office, announced it would be opening an engineering office this July. Until now, all of Facebook’s U.S. engineering activities have been centralized in its Palo Alto office where the company is headquartered. (Below is a summary of news coverage.)

To further build relationships with local leaders and the community, Facebook also asked us to plan a networking event. We worked closely with the team at the Office of Economic Development to coordinate this reception, which took place on May 18 at Seattle City Hall.

Speakers at the event included: Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, Ed Lazowska, chair in computer science & engineering, University of Washington, Greg Badros, director of engineering for Facebook, and Ari Steinberg, manager of engineering and head of the newly-established Seattle Facebook office.

During Ed Lazowska’s remarks I learned that University of Washington’s top-ranked computer science program is a top-five supplier of new college graduates to Microsoft, Amazon.com and Google. The university is now looking forward to becoming a top-five supplier to Facebook, too, now that the social networking company will have a presence in the Puget Sound region.

Ed also focused on the significance of Facebook’s decision to open an office in Seattle by focusing on the role that information technology plays in driving the economy of our city, country, state and nation. Here is a summary of the stats and information he shared:

• Nationwide, between 1999 and 2008, overall job growth was 6 percent, while Information Technology job growth was 26 percent more than four times as great.

• Looking to the future, between 2008 and 2018, information technology jobs are projected to grow by 22 percent, the fastest of all professional occupations.

• In fact, among all science and engineering occupations—the physical sciences, the life sciences, the social sciences and engineering—information technology is projected to account for 60 percent of the job growth between 2008 and 2018.

• Technology jobs create other jobs. In King County, there are 233,000 tech jobs. On average, each tech job supports three jobs in other sectors of the economy. The multiplier for information technology jobs is even higher—nearly 5:1.

• Part of the reason for tech’s high multiplier effect is that jobs in the tech industry pay, on average, nearly double the state average in wages and benefits.

As owners of a business that generates much of its revenue from many clients in the information technology space, Ed’s remarks resonated with Colleen Moffitt and me. Clearly, we would have a very different business without the plethora of high-tech companies in our region. And before founding Communiqué PR, Colleen and I had the opportunity to work for world-class tech companies such as McCaw Cellular Communications (now AT&T Wireless), Microsoft and Real Networks. The experience and skills we gained working for these industry leaders has been invaluable.

Given this, we are grateful the University of Washington is playing such an instrumental role in helping to create these jobs and ensuring that Washington’s young people are the ones who fill them. Additionally, we’re looking forward to seeing the Seattle Facebook office grow and become and established presence within our community.

• All Voices, “Facebook Opening Engineering Office in Seattle”
• Associated Press, “Facebook Opening Engineering Office in Seattle”
• Chris Pirillo, “The Seattle Social Community is Growing”
• CNET, “Facebook to Open Engineering Office in Seattle”
• Erictric, “Facebook Opening Office in Seattle”
• IT Business Edge, “Seattle Office Clicks for Facebook”
• King5.com, “Facebook to Open Seattle Engineering Office”
• KOMONews.com, “Facebook Puts Out the ‘Help Wanted’ Sign in Seattle”
• Mayor Mike McGinn Blog, “Facebook to Open Engineering Office in Seattle”
• MediaPost Online, “Facebook Follows Arrington to Seattle”
• MediaPost, “Facebook Follows Arrington to Seattle”
• Northwest Cable News, “Facebook to Open Seattle Engineering Office”
• Northwest Innovation, “Facebook to Open Engineering Office in Seattle”
• Q13 FOX Online, “Want to Work for Facebook? Company Expanding to Seattle”
• San Francisco Chronicle, “Facebook Opening Seattle Office, Hiring Software Engineers”
• San Jose Business Journal, “Facebook Opening Seattle Office”
• Seattle Times, “Facebook Move to Seattle: The Backstory”
• Seattle Times, “Facebook Plans to Open Seattle Engineering Office”
• Seattle Tops, “Facebook to Open Engineering Office in Seattle”
• Seattle Weekly Blogs, “Facebook is Coming to Seattle, Classmates.com Hears Footsteps”
• SeattlePI.com, “Facebook Friends Seattle, Will Open Office Here”
• SeattlePI.com, “Why We’re Rolling out the Red Carpet for Facebook”
• Silicontap, “Facebook Plans Seattle Office”
• Social VentureBeat, “Facebook to Open Seattle Engineering Office; Hadi Partovi Joins as an Advisor”
• SU-Spectator Blog, “Attention 2010 Grads: Facebook’s New Seattle Office is Hiring”
• TechCrunch, “There Goes the Neighborhood: Facebook to Open Seattle Office,” May 5, 2010
• TechFlash, “Facebook Exec to Seattle: Bring Us Your Very Best Engineers”
• TechFlash, “Facebook to Open Seattle Office”
• TechFlash, “Video: Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn Welcomes Facebook”
• TechWhack, “Facebook Setting Up an Office in Seattle”
• The News Tribune, “30 Facebook Jobs Coming to Seattle”
• The Prosperity Blog, “Economic Development: A Love Story”
• WebProNews, “Facebook Announces Seattle Expansion”
• Xconomy Seattle, “Facebook Coming to Seattle in July: Engineering Center to Hire 30 People”
• Xconomy Seattle, “What Facebook VP Mike Schroepfer is Looking for in Seattle Engineers: Entrepreneurial Passion”