Technology company comes home to Baltimore

CourseMax, a software provider for the training industry, is moving its data center to Baltimore Technology Park from northern Virginia.

“We like what Baltimore has to offer,” said Blake, who grew up in Baltimore.

Blake said his company began to outgrow its Northern Virginia facilities and with new clients and upgraded technology needed new digs.

CourseMax recently expanded from three to more than 50 training-center clients, which dramatically increased the volume of transactions its system handles, Blake said.

The system allows training companies to offer online student course selection and registration and helps institutions manage their classrooms, equipment, instructor resources and attendance levels.

“In our industry, it?s paramount that our services are never interrupted because an outage could mean millions in lost business for our customers,” Blake said.

Although being from Baltimore helped in his decision, Blake said Baltimore Technology Park offered significant tax incentives, including a 10-year, 80 percent credit against local personal property taxes.

“We are seeing a lot of high-tech companies locating in the tech park,” said Jeana Chaffin, director of product marketing for Baltimore Technology Park.

The park?s advantage is that ? because it?s new ? it offers the latest cooling and equipment infrastructure necessary for today?s high-tech company needs, Chaffin said.

CourseMax completed its data center move last week and hopes to relocate its corporate headquarters to the area by early 2007, Blake said.

“The whole Baltimore area is growing for young professionals as well. It really has become a hot spot … with a good supply of talent,” he said.

More information

» Baltimore Technology Park, 10 E. Baltimore St., opened in April and is a 30,000-square-foot facility geared toward technical companies that need the highest level of security and redundancy for business data.

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