Corporate Headquarters in Phoenix Area (Chandler: homes, wages, store)

[dc1225]

Hey guys,

Reading the Land of Opp. thread made me wonder, what are some of big businesses that you know of are based and headquartered out of Phoenix area??? or in AZ for that matter?

[Valley Native]

Dial Corporation, US Airways, Pinnacle West, Phelps Dodge, PetsMart HQ, Finova, Avnet, Apollo Group to name a few of the more substantial ones. Those are pretty reputable firms ... but it's a short list. There is a serious lack of large corporate HQs in the Phoenix metro area, as I've mentioned several times. There are many regional HQs for large banking & investment firms ... and you'll have many who will defend the fact that this place is great for small business. But for the higher wages & more competition among the giants, this area is seriously lacking for as large as it is (sorry to say).

[dc1225]

Originally Posted by Valley Native

Dial Corporation, US Airways, Pinnacle West, Phelps Dodge, PetsMart HQ, Finova, Avnet, Apollo Group to name a few of the more substantial ones. Those are pretty reputable firms ... but it's a short list. There is a serious lack of large corporate HQs in the Phoenix metro area, as I've mentioned several times. There are many regional HQs for large banking & investment firms ... and you'll have many who will defend the fact that this place is great for small business. But for the higher wages & more competition among the giants, this area is seriously lacking for as large as it is (sorry to say).

well said and good info!

[MichaelinWA]

From the current Fortune 1000:

140 Freeport-McMoRan (formerly Phelps Dodge)
163 Avnet
228 US Airways Group
400 Allied Waste Industries
477 Insight Enterprises
489 PetSmart
597 Pinnacle West
719 Amkor Technology
725 Apollo Group
803 Meritage Homes
918 CSK Auto
954 RSC Holdings

Allied Waste is merging with another trash company but the successor firm will remain in the Phoenix area. Metro Phoenix doesn't have a lot of truly large corporate headquarters, at least not considering the area's size. At least there are a couple of Fortune 200 outfits, although Freeport-McMoRan is often mentioned as possible takeover bait.

[azriverfan.]

Don't forget ColdStone creamery

Headquarters are nice but you don't need a headquarters to have a plethora of white collar jobs (which is why I'm assuming you are asking this question). For example, Honeywell and Motorollas' headquarters are not located here but they have a huge presence here and supposedly this is Motorollas 3 or 4th largest presence of any city in the country. Target corporation is also moving several jobs(not Target store jobs) down here and expanding it's corporate infrastructure here. American Express headquarters is in Minneapolis but they have a huge presence here as discussed potentially relocating here.

The truth is headquarters rarely move and Phoenix is not going to attract a lot of companies to move their headquarters here. However, what we can hope for and what's more realistic is to see several companies set up regional offices. Regional offices still employ several white collar executive jobd that pay well so they shouldn't be dismissed. When several companies do this at once, the local economy is going to improve tremendously. The reason this hasn't occurred in the past is Phoenix is very spread out and companies like to locate to a more urban area in which they are proximate to one another. This improves networking and business relationships. This will occur as our downtown continues to expand and develop. It's going to take one company that has the balls to really set itself up in downtown Phoenix the way Intel did in Chandler. Then other companies that do business or associate with that company will follow suit and you have a trickle down effect.

[micrguy]

CSK just got bought out, so we are going to lose another corporate headquarter. But don't forget some of the privately held companies with headquarters in Phoenix like U-Haul.

[dc1225]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

Don't forget ColdStone creamery

Headquarters are nice but you don't need a headquarters to have a plethora of white collar jobs (which is why I'm assuming you are asking this question). For example, Honeywell and Motorollas' headquarters are not located here but they have a huge presence here and supposedly this is Motorollas 3 or 4th largest presence of any city in the country. Target corporation is also moving several jobs(not Target store jobs) down here and expanding it's corporate infrastructure here. American Express headquarters is in Minneapolis but they have a huge presence here as discussed potentially relocating here.

The truth is headquarters rarely move and Phoenix is not going to attract a lot of companies to move their headquarters here. However, what we can hope for and what's more realistic is to see several companies set up regional offices. Regional offices still employ several white collar executive jobd that pay well so they shouldn't be dismissed. When several companies do this at once, the local economy is going to improve tremendously. The reason this hasn't occurred in the past is Phoenix is very spread out and companies like to locate to a more urban area in which they are proximate to one another. This improves networking and business relationships. This will occur as our downtown continues to expand and develop. It's going to take one company that has the balls to really set itself up in downtown Phoenix the way Intel did in Chandler. Then other companies that do business or associate with that company will follow suit and you have a trickle down effect.

Well, but it is important to have headquarter there since all the decision makers are there, not to mention that usually headquarters employ the most people.

[MichaelinWA]

Motorola had a huge presence in the Valley at one point (I was one of 25,000 or 30,000 Valley Motorolans at one point in the late 1980s), but its employee base is actually relatively small now. I agree with the other post that headquarters are important. Besides professional white-collar employment, HQs help in areas such as philanthrophy and civic leadership, not to mention prestige. But jobs like those at Intel and Honeywell are desirable as well.

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

Don't forget ColdStone creamery

Headquarters are nice but you don't need a headquarters to have a plethora of white collar jobs (which is why I'm assuming you are asking this question). For example, Honeywell and Motorollas' headquarters are not located here but they have a huge presence here and supposedly this is Motorollas 3 or 4th largest presence of any city in the country.

[fcorrales80]

A few more large corporations that I can think of off the top of my head:

P.F. Chang's/Pei Wei
ON Semiconductor
GoDaddy
IPowerWeb (5th largest web site hosting company)
Schaller Anderson (Healthcare and Research)
Banner Health
Basha's
Best Western
Discount Tire
eFunds Corporation
Ewing Irrigation
Fender Musical Instruments (like their famous guitar)
Honeywell AEROSPACE (IS headquartered in Phoenix)
JDA Software Group
Knight Transportation
Ping Golf/Karsten Manufacturing
Shamrock Foods
Swith Transportation
Troon Golf
Taser International

[NytoPhx]

That's a good list, Fcorrales, I'd say I applied to every job. Believe me, it wasn't easy, I applied to about 70 jobs and had maybe 5 get back to me, it takes persistency.