We had the privilege of celebrating a milestone recently, officially opening an expansion to our worldwide engineering and product headquarters in Westford, Massachusetts. Paul Cormier, Red Hat’s president of Products and Technologies, was joined by dignitaries including Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick, and Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki, for the celebration and ribbon cutting ceremony.
Opening the ceremony, Cormier gave a brief history of Red Hat’s presence in Massachusetts, growing from only a small handful of employees in 2001 to several hundred today.
“We are a company that is disrupting and changing the tech industry today. We became one of the top commercial software players in the business, and our presence here in Massachusetts in that same time frame is no coincidence,” said Cormier. “We have only been able to do that because of the talent here. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been a key part of Red Hat’s success, providing us with a strategic and valuable home for our research and development headquarters. This is why we came here and why we intend to stay here.”
Pointing to Red Hat as an example of growth and success in the Commonwealth, Governor Patrick said, “We have a 25-year high in employment in Massachusetts right now. We’ve come firing out of the recession, growing now twice as fast as the national growth rate. We are number one in a whole host of measures, including entrepreneurial activity. These things don’t happen by accident. They happen because of a concentrated strategy of investing in education, innovation and infrastructure - the accumulation of which is occasions just like this one.”
Secretary Bialecki went on to say that Red Hat’s reputation as an industry leader supports the case that Massachusetts continues to be a global hub of innovation. “Just merely by your presence, you are able to tell a story about how Massachusetts is one of the world’s great clusters for open source software. The fact that by being here you attract an interest from others, you are an anchor of that for us. We’re so very grateful for that.”
The expansion adds 100,00 square feet to Red Hat’s existing 75,000 square foot facility and includes open office plan for new workspaces, new lab areas, a workout facility with shower and changing rooms, and energy and water efficient equipment designed with an eye toward LEED Gold certification.
Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate this milestone with us. We are proud of our history in the Bay State and look forward to continuing to build a legacy of excellence in Massachusetts and the world.
Paul Cormier, president, Products and Technologies, Red Hat, and Deval Patrick, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, cut the ribbon on Red Hat’s newly expanded facility in Westford, Mass. Photo courtesy of Christina Wong.
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Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.
