Two national corporations have added their names to the list of employers that call Federal Way home.

A proactive city effort to attract businesses to Federal Way helped land the corporations.

And both are hiring.

Affiliated Computer Services, a Dallas-based company, recently announced it will open a call center in Federal Way. ACS provides business process outsourcing and IT services to commercial and government clients worldwide.

Doyon Government Group — a subsidiary of the Alaskan company Doyon Limited — provides security, logistics, transportation, maintenance, construction and telecommunications services to federal agencies. It began local operations last month.

ACS employs approximately 70,000 people world-wide. It will hire 250 employees and may expand its services in Federal Way at a later date. The company is expected to begin business in the second quarter of this year. ACS will lease 18,500 square feet of office space.

Doyon Government Group’s Federal Way location is at 33810 Weyerhaeuser Way S. The company began operations in 2003, and has grown substantially since that time. Doyon Government Group is made up of four lines of business, all of which support the federal government. Doyon provides security, construction, logistics and federal financial management.

Where other fields are laying off workers, Doyon Government Group is hiring. Its workforce has grown by nearly 1,000 employees in the past 18 months, said Patricia Homs, Doyon director of financial management services.

“We have just grown exponentially in the past one and a half years,” she said. “We are able to take up where some other people are evacuating.”

Homs and Doyon vice president Brent S. Meisner chose Federal Way for their new office because of its close proximity to Fort Lewis, where Doyon supplies security guards for the military base.

Weyerhaeuser’s environmentally pleasing campus setting was also a deciding factor, Homs said. Homs and Meisner like Federal Way’s community and the campus is conducive to a healthy workplace environment, Homs said.

“We’re very happy to have not only a company come to town, but a growing company,” Federal Way economic development director Patrick Doherty said.

Businesses on the Move

The city credits an initiative called “Federal Way: For Businesses on the Move” in helping bring ACS and Doyon here.

The effort is a partnership between the city, Federal Way Chamber of Commerce, building owners and leasing agents. Market sectors such as office operations, fast-growing businesses, call centers, engineering firms, health care and non-profit agencies are the prime targets of the initiative because those sectors have a strong existing presence in Federal Way. Print materials, an advertisement, a short video and an online database of available office space are all part of the initiative, which launched September 2008.

Federal Way’s accessibility to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Interstate 5 and sea ports in Seattle and Tacoma are touted. So too is the city’s abundance of office space for about $20 a square foot: A price $15 per square foot less than the average Seattle price and $5 per square foot less than the average Tacoma price.

The initiative’s partners spent $10,000 to display Federal Way, and received some criticism for dedicating so little funding to the effort. The small-scale campaign is more of an outreach effort than a marketing push, Doherty said at the time.

Beginning March 16, the city will begin airing a National Public Radio spot once a day for 17 weeks. The effort will cost $5,000, Doherty said.

“We’re ramping up the campaign,” Doherty said. “This is our next step.”

To learn more about “Federal Way: For Businesses on the Move,” visit the Web site www.cityoffederalway.com/Page.aspx?view=185.