Iron Mountain to employ 25

STAFFORD — Iron Mountain, a company making its way to Stafford, will lease the Gateway Distribution Center off of Warrenton Road and will occupy more than 140,000 square feet.

The company will employ approximately 25 people, according to company spokesperson Dan O’Neill.

“Iron Mountain Incorporated helps organizations around the world reduce the costs and risks associated with information protection and storage,” reads the overview on the company’s Web site.

Founded in 1951, the company offers records management, data protection, and information destruction solutions. Preserving and archiving documents and artifacts are integral to the company’s mission.

“There are certain…rules and regulations, specifically, that require the preservation of documents, whether they be digital or hard copy for extended periods of time,” said Tim Baroody, Stafford’s director of economic development. “…There are lots of rules and regulations that the federal government has to comply with. Iron Mountain is a big provider to the federal government.”

Baroody said that Iron Mountain’s role in Stafford is mostly a “warehouse operation,” though there will some executives on board. The workers have to be specially trained to accomplish the work done onsite, he said.

The building will need to be “retrofitted in an extensive way” to meet the company’s needs. Baroody said that the structure consists of “iron cages” geared to store the information.

Expansion of Iron Mountain is a possibility at Gateway, he added.

“This lease is good because it could mean others,” he said. “The chance of expansion is pretty good, according to [Iron Mountain].”

“The fact that they are investing several millions of dollars retrofitting the building certainly implied that they plan to be here long term,” he said.

Among the unique artifacts the company is entrusted with are a recording of Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” a recording of Frank Sinatra’s “Night and Day,” and original films “ET: The Extra Terrestrial” and “Back to the Future.”

Those items, however, are maintained in an underground facility in Pennsylvania, and will stay there.

Jim Lawrence is a contributing writer at the Stafford County Sun. Reach him at info@staffordcountysun.com.