F5 Networks Inc., a Seattle-based maker of computer networking equipment, says its expanding its Liberty Lake plant by 30,000 square feet to accommodate a recent employment boost and to prepare for more growth.


Two years ago, the company expanded its facility in the Liberty Lake Corporate Park to 15,000 square feet, but it already has outgrown that additional space, says Greg Davis, F5s Liberty Lake-based senior director of hardware development. The branch develops all the hardware for F5 products sold worldwide. The hardware itself is built at a plant in the San Francisco Bay Area.


The Liberty Lake branch has hired 23 employees since August 2005, and now employs 62 people, Davis says. Twelve of those employees were hired recently to form a new satellite office within the plant here thats managed by the professional services team at the companys corporate office in Seattle, he says. F5s professional services team provides technical assistance to the companys customers.


The expansion project, which will give the building a total of 45,000 square feet of space, is expected to start next month, and F5 plans to move into the new space this winter, Davis says.


Baker Construction & Development Inc., of Spokane, which owns the Liberty Lake Corporate Park, will be the contractor on the expansion, and Lindquist Architects, also of Spokane, designed it. Davis declines to disclose the cost of the project.


F5 plans to hire more employees before long, but Davis declines to give a specific number it expects to hire, saying that the company will add workers as opportunities arise.


The expansion gives us the ability to grow per market demand, Davis says. Well slowly grow as we find quality individuals.


F5 decided to open the satellite professional services office here because the Spokane area has a strong base of technical workers, particularly compared with the Seattle area, where heated labor market competition makes it harder to recruit and retain qualified engineers, he says.


We saw the ability within the Spokane market to expand here and to provide even greater support for our customers, Davis says. Spokane is a much more stable environment, and the talent pool has grown here over the years.


Publicly traded F5s revenues climbed 40 percent, to $394 million, in its 2006 fiscal year ended Sept. 30, says Alane Moran, its Seattle-based spokeswoman. It employs 1,280 people worldwide.


The company makes devices such as proxies, which are intermediary servers that provide Internet access to a pool of workstations; firewalls, which are specialized hardware designed to secure a computer or network from unauthorized access; and virtual-private network systems, which use public telecommunications infrastructure to create a private, secure data network. Together, those devices are designed to provide its customers employees with secure access to corporate applications and Web sites.


Contact Emily Brandler at (509) 344-1265 or via e-mail at emilyb@spokanejournal.com.