Red Hat HQ to Remain in North Carolina

In her economic announcement on Monday, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue announced that Red Hat plans to keep its headquarters in Wake County, North Carolina.

“Nothing makes me happier than to announce that Red Hat is staying in North Carolina – except, perhaps, to say they are also adding 540 new jobs,” said Gov. Perdue in her announcement Monday. “Red Hat is a homegrown, high-tech, global brand and we fought hard to keep them here. That’s because economic development – and growing jobs now – isn’t just about wooing outside companies. It’s about taking care of the ones we already have, and encouraging them to put down their roots even deeper,” she said.

“We have not yet defined the roles we plan to hire. Future hiring plans will be dependent on how the company grows and shifts," said Leigh Day, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications for Red Hat. “The jobs will be local to the NC area and there are no plans to relocate employees to Wake County at this time,” she said.

Wake Technical Community College (WTCC) is one place in which Red Hat has the opportunity to develop that deeper “root system.” WTCC offers a Red Hat Administration Certificate program and is listed as a Red Hat Academy (RHA). Red Hat continues to expand on its “The Open Source Way (TOSW)”, and Linux Pro Magazine (LPM) wondered whether there were plans to expand both the Open Source offerings and include TOSW at the Community College level. “We are working with WTCC to expand their open source curriculum; however,details on execution plans are under development,” Day said.

Although there were no plans to include TOSW in WTCC’s current offerings, Day did agree that bringing TOSW to the college and high schools levels to help gain that “deeper root” system in the Wake county area by introducing open source via Red Hat, was a good suggestion.

At this time, it's unclear when Red Hat will announce the actual location of the project or when it will be completed, but Day did say, “The selection process is underway. We don't have an exact time line, but expect to make a decision soon.”