Agilent’s $50M upgrade in the home stretch

<p>SANTA ROSA – Agilent’s three-year campus upgrade is moving down the home stretch and on schedule to be completed in the spring of 2009.</p><p>The $50 million renovation is intended to turn the four-building Santa Rosa site into an international showplace and training center while providing its 1,400 employees a state-of-the-art workplace, according to Ron Nersesian, vice president of the company’s wireless business unit and site general manager.</p><p>Most of the work has been done indoors, although landscaping redesign matches the new dramatic interior.</p><p>Gone is the guardhouse by the entrance drive, replaced by roving security guards and an upgraded electronic site-access system. The new 2,200-square-foot lobby has floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on new plantings and a spacious visitor parking lot.</p><p>“We’ve definitely moved on from the florescent-lit, 70s-style lobby,” said Mr. Nersesian. In fact, electric lighting throughout the building, supplemented by swathes of natural light from huge windows, is people-friendly and abundant.</p><p>The new design emphasizes collaboration. There are a dozen conference rooms in each building, ranging from spacious with hillside views to intimate, where two people can chat in easy chairs.</p><p>“Employees are encouraged to use the small conference rooms for private calls or simply to concentrate in a quiet space,” said Mr. Nersesian.</p><p>Around every corner are food areas with cafe seating.</p><p>The employee cafeteria, a work in progress, will resemble a gourmet restaurant. “The original cafeteria was more of an institutional eating space, so we had it redesigned. It’ll be really spectacular,” said Mr. Nersesian.</p><p>The largest of the meeting areas is a 4,000-square-foot auditorium able to seat 250 with a drop-down screen and surrounded by 4,100 square feet of lobby space, including a coffee bar.</p><p>“We’ve already gotten some good use from it, for both internal Agilent and community meetings. We held the graduation ceremony for the Santa Rosa Chamber’s summer Algebra Academy here last week,” said Jeff Weber, Agilent spokesman.</p><p>The Agilent site is home to five divisions, with several departments in each one. For engineers, the cubicle is still the workspace of choice, but where teamwork is in order spaces are informal with low partitions and the look of an old-fashioned office.</p><p>To help keep the different divisions in touch, flat-screen monitors in employee seating areas display a running stream of company news and announcements, including breakthroughs in one department that might lead to innovations in another.</p><p>“We went a little overboard on the electronics. They were more expensive than we expected,” admitted Mr. Nersesian.</p><p>“But communication is key to innovation, and in a company like ours innovation is a necessity.”</p><p>He cited an example of collaboration between Agilent’s life sciences and electronic test and measurement groups when company engineers discovered network-analyzing equipment could detect cancer cells.</p><p>The campus contains a university, although it’s not immediately apparent. Agilent engineers and salespeople from around the world – sometimes 250 at a time – come to the upgraded site for training sessions, held like college courses in the conference rooms and meeting areas.</p><p>“They’re given schedules and maps and move from one area to another,” said Mr. Nersesian.</p><p>Despite the focus on training and showcasing, Agilent employees have plenty to pamper them. Outside recreation areas have been improved, and a state-of-the-art workout gym is now available at any time.</p><p>The upgrade, designed by Seattle-based Callison Architecture, is on schedule and on budget, although plans for an outdoor amphitheater have been postponed to a later day, said Mr. Nersesian. The renovations should be complete in time to celebrate Agilent’s ten-year anniversary as a stand-alone company in 2009.</p><p>“Although in spirit and what we’re doing with this project, we’re closer to the original Hewlett Packard than the current Hewlett Packard,” said Mr. Weber.</p><p>Alongside the upgrade, although not part of the $50 million project, is a three-acre solar panel installation. It’ll be dramatically visible from one of the largest conference rooms. “We just had a contingent of Japanese industrial leaders meeting in this room. The solar project was of great interest to them,” said Mr. Nersesian.</p>