CARMEL, Ind. (Jan. 28, 2016) – Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) Inc., an independent regional electric transmission organization, announced plans today to expand its headquarters here, creating up to 84 new high-wage jobs by 2020.
The company will invest $30 million in its Carmel campus, with the investment including costs for construction, new technology and leasing to reconfigure its 133,409-square-foot facility at 720 City Center Drive in Carmel to increase the efficiency of its operations. Construction is scheduled to begin in January, allowing MISO to support the expansion of its utility customers and work to ensure the reliable delivery of electricity across 15 states and the Canadian province of Manitoba.
“Over the last three years, Indiana’s private sector has added 140,500 jobs with the help of companies like MISO,” said Governor Mike Pence. “Indiana’s unemployment rate stands at its lowest rate in more than a decade because job creators like MISO are looking at their options and choosing to locate their growth in the Hoosier business climate, which is one of the best in the nation. Today MISO joins a long list of homegrown companies that are expanding their headquarters in Indiana and creating more high-wage jobs for Hoosiers.”
MISO currently employs more than 940 associates nationally, including more than 700 Hoosiers at its headquarters. The company has already begun hiring for information technology and engineering positions, with average wages expected to pay nearly double the Hamilton County average wage. Interested applicants may search for open positions on the MISO website.
“Indiana has been our home since we first started, and we are proud to continue that investment,” said John R. Bear, president and chief executive officer of MISO. “Fulfilling our mission of ensuring reliable operation of the electric grid requires the best and the brightest. This commitment to our Carmel facility will ensure that we have the people and technology to continue that mission in a way that provides value to our region.”
Formed in 1998, MISO became the nation’s first Regional Transmission Organization in 2001. The company acts as the “air traffic controller” of the electric grid by administering wholesale electricity markets. With its Indiana headquarters and additional facilities in Arkansas, Minnesota and Louisiana, the company helps its customers more efficiently distribute electricity, matching demand with generating capacity, resulting in billions of dollars in economic benefit each year.
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered MISO Inc. up to $1,600,000 in conditional tax credits and up to $100,000 in training grants based on the company’s estimated job creation plans. These incentives are performance-based, meaning until Hoosiers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives. The city of Carmel will consider additional incentives.
“We congratulate MISO on its big news today and we celebrate the fact that they chose to expand here in Carmel,” said Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard. “MISO has been a part of Carmel’s corporate family of 100-plus headquarters since the late 1990s and we look forward to watching their continued growth.”
MISO’s growth comes at a record time for economic growth in the Hoosier State. Nearly 60 percent of the 140,500 private sector jobs created in the past three years have been above the state’s average wage. And last year, 323 companies made plans to locate or grow their operations in Indiana, projecting to create 26,555 new Hoosier jobs in the coming years with an average annual salary of more than $51,700.
