Known for appealing to businesses operating in the technology sector, UF’S Innovation Square has attracted a new resident to the area. CurtCo Robb Media LLC, a notable international publishing company catering to the ultra-luxury market, has announced their move to the research community, further expanding the variety of organizations found at Innovation Square.
A formal event celebrating the announcement of CurtCo Robb Media’s relocation to Innovation Square will be held at Ayers Innovation Plaza on June 17, 2013. An event for the press will begin at 4pm with the celebration reception following at 5:15pm.
“We’re a publishing company, but CurtCo made the decision two years ago to become a digital brand. The development of the office in Gainesville allows us to attract software engineers and other employees working in the tech field. By relocating our Gainesville office to Innovation Square, we foresee that we’ll be able to recruit top UF graduates as well as partner with other companies that have made the move to this unique facility, supporting our digital future,” said John C. Anderson, Senior Vice President, Digital Group at CurtCo Rob Media.
Numerous companies in the Gainesville area have realized their need to employ the skills of the technology sector in order to stay competitive and adapt to the evolving needs of their target market. Although a publishing company, CurtCo Robb Media uses programmers to greater convey products to their clients on digital media.
Trae Walker, Publisher and VP of Sales who heads up the Gainesville operation for Curtco spoke about Robb Report’s focus on creating multiple digital platforms designed to allow affluent consumers to explore luxury products and services on their favorite format – tablet, website, e-newsletter, smart phones, and social media.
“Robb Report knows that technology and innovation are the most important components to making our digital platforms engaging. The brand is known for being one of the most interactive and innovative in the luxury market, and to stay on the cutting edge, we need innovative, cutting edge developers and technology specialists that are available in Gainesville,” Walker said.
Until recently, CurtCo Robb Media sought out these programmers in Malibu, California, where the company is headquartered. When programmers in Los Angeles, the Silicon Valley and surrounding areas became scarce, the organization saw Innovation Square as an advantageous location to grow their business. Walker said that the company has doubled its Gainesville team from five to ten employees since moving to Innovation Square and plans to add more with increased future growth.
“Companies like CurtCo know that to transform from a publishing company to a cutting edge digital content provider, they need a pool of talented computer science graduates. At UF, our computer science and engineering graduates have what it takes – a high level of technical competence, abundant creativity, and experience in balancing teamwork and personal dedication,” said Cammy Abernathy, Ph. D., Dean of the UF College of Engineering.
University of Florida’s high-ranking programs and large number of quality graduates are largely responsible for attracting companies to Innovation Square. Companies like MindTree, Mobiquity, and CurtCo have listed this as a top reason for choosing to move to Innovation Square. In US News’s computer engineering program ranking, the University of Florida tied with esteemed educational institutions Yale and the University of California at Davis. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities, UF ranked above Harvard, Columbia, and Oxford universities for their engineering, technology and computer science programs.
In addition to the scarcity of top technology talent in other areas of the country, the high cost of living in places like California requires that companies pay a much higher salary, with less disposable income remaining in the employee’s pockets at the end of the month. That makes Gainesville a good choice for the companies and a good choice for the employees.
“The expansion of an internationally renowned company like CurtCo Media here in Gainesville is exactly the type of economic progress the Innovation Gainesville initiative was meant to create,” said John Carlson, Chair of the Council for Economic Outreach and Principal of Charles Perry Partners, Inc. “Not only are technology companies taking notice of Gainesville being a hub for innovation and technology, but the addition of CurtCo shows the diversity of business that economic progress can create.”