Valeant’s
Headquarters
I enjoyed your July 17 article on the anticipated sale of Valeant Pharmaceutical International’s 3300 Hyland Ave. headquarters building in Costa Mesa.
However, I would like to note a few material discrepancies in the story with respect to the history of the building.
Though I don’t know precisely when it was built (I suspect 1971), I can safely say it was originally constructed not for ICN but for the Hyland Laboratories division of then Baxter-Travenol Laboratories, now Baxter International. I worked in the building from 1973 to 1976.
The building’s design and exterior appearance, which has not changed significantly since it was built, was established by Baxter, not by ICN.
Sited on Hyland Avenue,named after the Hyland division,the building was constructed to Baxter’s purposes to house both Hyland Laboratories diagnostic products and its therapeutic products division. The division’s executive offices, administrative offices and laboratories were on the second and third floors. Manufacturing facilities were on the first.
Another little known fact about the building is that I met my beautiful wife of 28 years while working in the building in the inventory control department on the third floor in the far southeast corner overlooking the 405 freeway.
Charlie Baecker
(Baecker is assistant director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine)
In your July 17 article on Valeant, you state that the 177,000-square-foot, three-story Costa Mesa complex was built under the direction of company founder Milan Panic.
The design and the building itself were done under Norm Achen, who was president of Hyland Laboratories at the time.
When Hyland moved into the building, it was Achen who took credit for the design and the landscaping. The building featured a double door entrance to the president’s office along with a secretary for all the executive secretaries.
Everyone from Hyland would gather at the Blue Ox on Harbor Boulevard on Friday nights.
Baxter, which bought Hyland in 1952, later stepped in and did one of the bloodiest headcount firings on the executive level in the history of Orange County.
It was a great place to work and have fun as the majority of the employees were 22 to 35 years in age. It was known as “Hyland High.”
Yes, the stories you hear are all true.
Milt Dardis
Huntington Beach
