Gateway's Ted Waitt is making a move

The only billionaire in North Sioux City, S.D. -- Waitt is CEO and co-founder of Gateway 2000 Inc. -- is soon going to enjoy the luxury of the relative anonymity that comes when you're not the only jet-setter in town.

Earlier this week, Gateway (GTW) disclosed plans to relocate its most senior executives to a new administrative headquarters in San Diego.

Waitt and Jeffrey Weitzen, the computer maker's recently appointed president, will still maintain offices in North Sioux City, where the company's manufacturing operations are located.

Gateway said the announcement was only one of a series of steps the company was taking to increase its business. In addition to the San Diego opening, Gateway is creating a business marketing division in Irvine, Calif., where the sales and marketing arms of Advanced Logic Research Inc. (acquired last year) are now located. The company is also opening up a branch in New York City that will target Web site development.

Left unsaid was the fact that Waitt, who owns property in an exclusive area of San Diego, has been spending an increasing amount of time at his California residence.

A quest for anonymity?
Some analysts have suggested that Waitt's desire to spend more time on the West Coast also factored into his decision to entertain merger discussions with Compaq a couple of years ago. However, people familiar with his thinking say Waitt is now keen to move his four children to a region where they will be able to lead less public lives.

"Anybody who knows anything about this knows that Ted is doing this so his kids can have a decent upbringing," says a source. "They stuck out like sore thumbs in North Sioux City."

"This will be his mechanism for moving to San Diego -- which he wanted to do -- and maintaining control of the business," the source continued. "The fundamental thing here is that Ted's moving to San Diego because that's where his house is. The question is whether he can run the company remotely."

A 'recruitment issue'
A company spokesman said Gateway's decision to base its administrative headquarters in San Diego "boiled down to a recruitment issue."

"San Diego was chosen because of its growing high-tech influence," said the spokesman, Greg Lund, adding that as many as 20 cities had been considered by Gateway.

"It's really about the growth in our business," he said. "You have got to get bigger. The San Diego move is just one of them, and hopefully, it will help us continue our rapid growth."

Lund said the decision was reached independently of Waitt's ownership of a residence in San Diego.

"It's not been a prominently talked about reason," he said. "The reasons are business reasons that we've been talking about."

Golf, anyone?
But it is not unheard of to find companies tailoring their expansion plans to fit the boss's personal convenience. And in the age of e-mail, executives can more easily spend portions of the work week in out-of-state homes and offices. For instance, Intel's newly-appointed chief executive, Craig Barrett, commutes to Santa Clara, Calif., each week from his Arizona residence.

What's more, this would not be the first time a company has opened a facility for the convenience of a top executive. Former IBM CEO Thomas Watson Jr. was an avid skier and during his time at the helm from 1956 to 1971, the company built a chip plant in out-of-the-way Essex Junction, Vt., that was near a ski resort.

Local business development officials viewed Gateway's plans to open a site in the ritzy La Jolla area just north of San Diego as a coup. However, they referred any plans about further expansion to Gateway.

"We would hope to help Gateway grow in any way in which they desire," said an executive from San Diego's Economic Development Corp., adding that Gateway plans to employ more than 100 people in the new offices by the end of the year. "We're thrilled for what it is."