ConocoPhillips Breakfast Meeting

Overview of Boulder Tomorrow Breakfast Meeting June 24, 2008

Boulder Tomorrow welcomed over 200 guests at the June 24, 2008 Breakfast meeting, with a panel of speakers discussing the recent purchase of the 432-acre Sun Microsystems' property in Louisville by energy company ConocoPhillips. The company plans to develop a leadership learning center and a global technology research center on the site, with a projected potential of 7000 new jobs over the next 20 - 25 years.

Attendees heard from Chuck Sisk, Mayor of Louisville; Mary Manning, General Manager of Global Real Estate and Facilities Services for ConocoPhillips and moderator Tom Clark, Executive Vice President of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.

After months of speculation, ConocoPhillips revealed they purchased the property for their best-in-class training facility for all their employees worldwide. In a lighthearted but serious way, Tom and Chuck described the discreet nature of negotiations that led to the purchase. "I am still under the obligations of non-disclosure agreements," said Tom. "However I can tell you that we were told the purchaser was looking for an iconic site, a place that people driving by would say 'I wish I worked there.'" "I thought I was meeting with the CIA," said Chuck. "We had many meetings with people without last names."

According to Mary the philosophy behind all the secrecy was that this was in the best interest of the company and their employees. "We have 10,000 people who need to concentrate on their jobs and not be worried about if they’re going to be transferred."

However she admitted this is not the typical way to do site selection. More often public competition for such a desirable corporate campus leads to huge financial incentives being waved at companies who can let cities outbid each other. "It's not good when the news and noise gets back to your employees,' she said. Tom agreed: "Usually this kind of choice becomes a national frenzy of incentives; I have a great amount of respect for what they did. Ultimately the best decision a company makes is about being in the right location, not about how much money somebody gives you to be in the wrong location."

Mary clarified that the campus will grow to 7000 employees over many years, not all at once. "We see this site as absolutely crucial to the future of ConocoPhillips, where we would be in a leadership role and identified with the new energy industry." For now, Sun is leasing the buildings through 2008. Demolition and construction will begin next year.

"We want our global employees to want to come to the Colorado campus. We want this to be a destination point within our company," she said. "Having leadership training side-by-side with the research teams offers great possibilities." Mary did emphasize that there is no programming for the site yet, and mid-2012 is an ambitious but realistic goal for the start of any on-site research and training activity.

Tom described a corporate campus of 7000 employees will make ConocoPhillips the region's fourth largest private sector employer with wages and salaries between $400 and $500 million. "They will have an economic impact in excess of $1 billion. This truly is a really big deal; not only for the community but our long-term economic survivability."

The partnerships necessary to guide this development were also highlighted. "We're a small community and we look forward to working with ConocoPhillips to design this," said Chuck. "We in Louisville pride ourselves on regional cooperation. This is not just for Louisville, it is for Boulder County, Broomfield County, it's for the state of Colorado. Think of Boulder County being the energy capital of not only the United States but the whole world. This is exciting and important."

Chuck also described regional transportation efforts regarding Hwy US 36 and the need for the business community to be involved. "Keep your eye on that because economic development relies on transportation projects."

Mary stressed her company's interest in being a responsible corporate citizen and designing a campus that augments the characteristics that made Colorado their choice. "We are reviewing the best in class centers around the world to be sure they create cutting-edge facilities for Louisville. We will make the buildings and landscapes environmentally efficient and we will master plan the property. Its an exciting time for our company and we are looking all over the world to build the very best facilities that we can build in Louisville."

Mary described ConocoPhillips' belief that a national energy policy is crucial; this center will help them be directly involved with that effort. "We will show through our research we are looking beyond the traditional sources of oil and energy for the United States," she said. "We have to be a leader in looking for new energy sources."

The event was sponsored by Xcel Energy & The Boulder County Business Report.

For more information on ConocoPhillips click Here