A good crowd turned out for an open house Tuesday afternoon in Philomath at the new home of Alyrica Networks. Pleasant weather with blue skies, an impressive spread of refreshments, a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the local chamber of commerce, employee-guided tours and even a few inflatable carnival games greeted folks visiting the new campus.
Heck, close cousin Dax even wandered over from his nearby building to check out what was going on.
Alyrica, a locally owned internet service provider, made the move across North 19th Street into its new office and warehouse space about a month ago. It had been a long time coming for the employees, which number close to 50.
“Finally this last year, we’re like, ‘next year, we’re going to move next door’ and I don’t know if anybody believed us at that point,” Alyrica CEO Sam Dodson said after cutting the ribbon, mentioning that it had been a six-year process. “But we all came through. We love the new space and are excited to grow here in Philomath.”
Joining Alyrica at the new site are Nova Dynamics, Daxbot and Active911. In all, Dodson estimated the total number of employees at around 120 to 130. Members of the Sullivan family — Kevin and Joseph Sullivan with the biggest stakes — own the businesses.
“I think this campus has a lot of promise for not just the buildings that we have here today but for the buildings to come,” Dodson said. “As you can tell, we’re fairly settled operationally but there’s a lot of room still to grow.”
The buildings left behind on the other side of the highway will still serve a purpose.
“We’ll continue to rent the warehouses next door — we still have an active lease over there,” Dodson said. “The plan is as Alyrica continues to grow, we’ll use that primarily as warehouse space. So we’ll probably have to repurpose some of the offices — what is currently office space over there. But the plan is to continue to use both the warehouse and yard space for future growth.”
The companies on campus lease the site from Northernwood LLC, a property holding company that’s also owned by the Sullivan family. Gerding Builders headed up construction.
“This has been a big project, not just for Alyrica, but for Northernwood, for Gerding,” Dodson said. “It’s been really quite the honor to be able to actually complete this project and move in, so I’m very excited.”
2. PHS forestry champs
Philomath High School forestry students participated recently in the Oregon Future Natural Resource Leaders state championships, a two-day event with venues at Oregon State University in Corvallis and Brooks Historical Society in that small community on the other side of Salem.
Champions from Philomath High included Case Hoch (demonstrated speech), Preston Luscher-McCoy (pole climb), Konner Oleman (cable splicing) and Caroline Puckett (cable splicing). Several others had top-six finishes in the competitions, which includes students from 15 schools — Caleb Babcock, Hayden Fishe, Jared Gerding, Jackson Holroyd, Ty May, Cameron McConnell, Kelsey Olsen, Jacob Peters, Josiah Peters, Dewey Sexton, Thomas Smith and Tyler Smouse.
The Future Natural Resource Leaders is a student leadership organization “dedicated to personal growth and career success through natural resources education.”
3. Pet Day at OSU
For owners of furry, feathered and scaled friends, Pet Day at Oregon State University returns Saturday, May 6. The free event runs from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. and is open to community members of all ages and pets of all shapes and sizes, organizers announced. It takes place outside of the Lois Bates Acheson Veterinary Teaching Hospital (700 SW 30th St.) on the Corvallis campus.
The Purina 5K Fun Run kicks off the fun at 9 a.m. on the northwest side of campus near Magruder Hall. Activities during the day include the teddy bear surgery booth where kids can get their toys stitched up, a hands-on science station and a kids zone with inflatables, face painting, games and crafts.
Several local groups are bringing their animals for demonstrations and some of the veterinary college’s teaching animals will also be in attendance. Tours of the veterinary hospital will also be available. Contests include those for cat photos and pet costumes. There will also be dog-wash and nail-trim stations.
And oh yeah, there will be food vendors on site selling snacks and lunch.
There are too many details to list here — see this press release for more info.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).