Yahoo! opens with a yodel in Quincy

Community takes tours of big purple business Monday afternoon

QUINCY - Quincy residents welcomed the latest data center to open in their midst by christening it with yodels.

Wylie Gustafson, a resident of Dusty, Wash., and the man responsible for the signature Yahoo! Inc. yodel led a crowd of area leaders in trying on their own yodels for size during the grand opening of the first data center Yahoo! has built from the ground up.

"I'm a professional yodeler and I was waiting by the phone for my next gig - those were long waits back then," Gustafson recalled. "I got a phone call: A small Internet startup company was doing their first commercial, they were going public and they wanted the yodel. They wanted something to express their fun attitude and the fact they were a little different."

Gustafson was the last in a line of speakers to address the audience in a ceremony held at the Yahoo! facility at 1010 Yahoo Way.

"These data centers are at the very core of what Yahoo! is all about," said Yahoo! Cofounder David Filo. "Of course, we are a Web services company and that means everything we do, every time a user touches us, every time we generate revenue, all of that is coming through and starts at a data center like this, the computers inside of it. And so these are extremely critical to Yahoo!'s success."

David Aaroe, Executive Vice

President of Fortis Construction, which worked on the building with DPR, told the audience one of the goals was to use as many local contractors and suppliers as was possible.

"We achieved more than 60 percent local and regional subcontractors, and I'm really proud of that, and I know our team is, too," he said. "The level of craftsmanship, quality that you'll see out here was delivered by the craft workers in our region, and they've done a top-notch job."

Yahoo! also wanted a pristine safety record, Aaroe added, and the site did 100 percent better than the national average, with zero lost-time accidents and 75 percent of the national average of reportable accidents.

"As you are learning, here we are right in the middle of farm country," Congressman Doc Hastings said. "You are probably the most diversified farm area in the United States … One of the challenges any time in an agriculture-based economy is to try to diversify your economy. So now with all of the crops we grow here that we continue to sell worldwide, I hope we grow with farms, I hope we have more server farms here, and you and Quincy have been a pioneer in that regard."

Hastings said he is aware Yahoo! was attracted to Quincy because of the quality of life and the low-cost power.

"I would just remind you that it is renewable power, hydropower and it is not polluting power," Hastings said. "Thank you very much for being part of our Central Washington family. We look for many, many years and hopefully great success."

After the ceremony, Yahoo! Vice President of Operations Kevin Timmons said his company's goals had been to give people a feel for the Yahoo! culture.

"Which is fairly loose, informal and genuine," he explained.

Timmons said the company has overall had a positive story and is happy to be in the community but there is an issue remaining to be resolved.

"We're slightly concerned about our ability to expand our operations here and to continue to invest in Washington as a whole," he said. "Some of the promise of investing in the rural area, as it was kind of relayed to us when we embarked on this journey, is not necessarily coming through."

When Yahoo! began in Quincy, Timmons explained, it was represented to the company that tax incentives would be available for investing in such an area.

"We're having a difficult time making those a reality," he said. "We're working closely with state officials to try to make sure it's continually viable for us to continue to expand here; that is a concern."