When Gryphon Financial Group, a Morgan Hill business-to-business
financial auditing firm, expands into the vacant half of the
26,000-square-foot building they now occupy early next year, they
anticipate adding up to 100 more jobs to the local economy.
When Gryphon Financial Group, a Morgan Hill business-to-business financial auditing firm, expands into the vacant half of the 26,000-square-foot building they now occupy early next year, they anticipate adding up to 100 more jobs to the local economy.
“We’ve been growing every year,” Gryphon president and CEO Sean Rositano said. “We’ll be adding 50 to 100 new jobs in the first year after the expansion.”
That’s good news for Morgan Hill, which currently faces an unemployment rate of 13.6 percent as of October, according to the California Employment Development Department. That means about 2,400 residents are still looking for jobs, and Gryphon anticipates being able to draw from the local workforce – which consists of many former laid-off employees of Silicon Valley’s tech sector – to fill new positions in account management, vendor relations, project management, operations and other positions. The company will seek non-English native speakers to fill many of the new positions, added director of operations Randy Buford.
While the city’s latest unemployment numbers are the best Morgan Hill has seen in more than a year, they hover well above the nationwide unemployment rate of 9.8 percent. And while Gryphon is in the minority of companies that have continued to grow during the Great Recession, its expansion could be a sign of bigger, changing trends.
The city’s economic development staff are working with a number of companies planning to expand or consolidate their operations to Morgan Hill, according to senior project manager for economic development Jim Dumas. While Dumas declined to name the companies that are considering such a move, he noted that one – a distributor of electronic components – plans to relocate to Morgan Hill, where they will expand and add another 40 jobs to their current workforce of 60. The company plans to double its operations within three years after the move.
“Anytime we can get local firms to expand, it’s great for our economy,” Dumas said. The new employees at any firm will be a combination of people commuting here from outside the area, and future new residents who plan to relocate to town – either way helping to sustain the local economy, Dumas said.
Gryphon Financial’s offices are in the Morgan Hill Ranch business park on Jarvis Drive. The 28,000-square-foot building they moved into in 2007, from San Jose, was recently purchased by an investor who is more amenable to the company’s expansion plans than was the previous owner, according to commercial real estate broker Dave Carris, who represented buyer Jerry Ivy Trust.
Gryphon is a financial services company that specializes in auditing their clients’ transactions and relations with vendors, Rositano explained.
The company currently employs about 100 at the Morgan Hill offices. Many of the employees commute from areas to the north including Cupertino and Santa Clara – highlighting an advantage of Morgan Hill as a viable place for the valley’s workforce to commute to. Plus, Gryphon’s employees contribute to the local economy by buying groceries and fuel in Morgan Hill, and eating at restaurants in town, Buford said.
Furthermore, the company prides itself on how it treats its employees, who are given leeway to self-manage and work on their own, explained Rositano, who described Gryphon’s management structure as “lean.” That’s one reason why the company has been “consistently hiring” despite the recession that started in 2008.
“We provide the training, and (the employees) see the growth and opportunities,” Buford added.
