The layout inside Microsemi Corp.’s four-story headquarters in Aliso Viejo was designed with the same detail that goes into the company’s ultra-durable chips used in outer space.
Chief Executive Jim Peterson spent three years scouting possible locations around Orange County.
He settled on one building at the top of a hill, overlooking the commercial enclave in the South County city.
“They always tell you to build your home on high grounds,” said Peterson, who’s as sociable as he is direct (see OC 50 profile in Special Report, starting on page 21).
He takes pride in showing off the company’s new 110,000-square-foot digs at One Enterprise Drive, the former headquarters for drug maker Val-eant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., which left Orange County after it was acquired in a 2010 deal.
The executive wing on the fourth floor is where Peterson keeps his closest confidantes within shouting distance of his own office, which is filled with personal trinkets, sports memorabilia including encased Super Bowl tickets from his beloved New York Giants, and a large painting of a bull to discourage any visitor inclined to stretch the truth.
Traditionally, the chief executive will keep his chief financial officer next door but not at Microsemi. Peterson has his CFO, John Hohener, closer to the top operations executive.
“I think the CFO component and any target line are better suited next to each other,” said Peterson, who’s put a lot of thought into structuring the office with specific executives in mind.
“The Number One function for any CEO is that I report to shareholders,” he said. “That’s my job.”
That’s why he’s placed Rob Adams, vice president of corporate development, next to his office.
“He’s our IR, PR guy and our face to Wall Street,” Peterson said of Adams. “He’s helped me build the image and send a message.”
Zarlink Deal
That message rang loud and clear last year when the chipmaker entered a $548.7 million hostile bid to acquire Canadian competitor Zarlink Semiconductor Inc. It later upped the bid to about $624 million, prompting Zarlink’s board to recommend the offer to shareholders.
Microsemi closed the deal in mid-October, finalizing a rare hostile takeover of a technology company—and a deal that came after some public posturing by Peterson.
Next to Adams office is Microsemi’s top lawyer and in-house counsel David Goren.
“Any good CEO should always tell you to keep your lawyers close,” Peterson said. “Not that you’ll need them but so you don’t need them.”
Peterson’s mergers and acquisitions guy is executive vice president and chief strategy officer Steven Litchfield, who’s crafted the company’s growth trajectory: two-thirds internal and a third through acquisitions.
An oversized white board on a wall in Litchfield’s office is littered with notes, valuations, projections, investments and other line items on the balance sheet.
“This all tells me what I should buy and what I shouldn’t buy,” Peterson said.
“Power Hitters”
Peterson’s lines up his “power house” on the other side of his office.
Next to Litchfield sits chief operations officer Ralph Brandi, probably the most powerful and smartest guy in the company, according to Peterson.
“He’s an old, grumpy, Pall Mall-smoking kind of a hands-on, make-it-happen guy,” he said. “I do all the talking, he does all the walking.”
Brandi’s office is tidy. He has all the answers and doesn’t need data written down in front of him, Peterson jokes.
Around the corner is the “Jimmy P. War Room,” which could double as a Rat Pack hangout from back in the day.
Testosterone pervades the room, which is decked out in leather furniture. A movie poster of “Casino” hangs high, along with a New York subway sign to Yankees Stadium, Beatles photos and a flat screen TV that scrolls through Wall Street tickers.
A stencil holding a large tear-off sheet reads: “Meet Us in the Street,” a term and style Peterson’s loves.
“This is where the guys know they’re going to get a little lecture from me,” he said. “I like it here for the fact that there is no desk. Sometime the best decisions are made without a desk.”
Ego Adjustments
The executive floor has 40 offices and 38 work stations, which requires some ego adjustments.
“Everybody just can’t hide in an office, someone has to sit in the cubicles and communicate,” Peterson said. “That’s always the hardest part, because everyone wants to tell mom and dad that they’re in an office. I have all these smart lawyers sitting in cubicles.”
The entire building is laid out in his style, “the way I want things to happen,” Peterson said.
The first floor houses computer systems and the information technology personnel, a pairing Peterson’s refers to as “the heartbeat of the company.”
The second floor is home to Microsemi engineers from the company’s high-performance analog division and mixed-signal group. Engineers started migrating from Irvine and Garden Grove to Aliso Viejo a few months ago.
The third floor is largely empty, giving Microsemi plenty of room to grow.
When the company moved to Irvine in 2002 it had a market value of about $230 million.
“That for us, at the time, was appropriate,” Hohener said. “But at the size we are today, we’re really at a different stage in our life cycle.”
Now its market value is close to $1.8 billion.
The move to Aliso Viejo in August was part of a consolidation that will put Microsemi’s Garden Grove and Irvine operations under one roof. It allowed room for a few new members of the engineering team who are still arriving on the heels of recent acquisitions.
“We’ve had so much success that unification and communication became really important,” Peterson said. “The proper thing to do was find a secondary building to unify the engineers and lifeblood into one organization.”
The headquarters better reflects what Microsemi has grown to be, said John Holtrust, senior vice president of human resources.
Open Walkways
The building has open walkways that encircle each floor, allowing employees to move freely from one wing to another. Peterson wanted the best amenities for the 300 to 400 people working there.
“They probably spend more time here than at home,” Peterson said. “So let’s make sure of two things: The lobbies have to be nice and oh, by gosh, those bathrooms. So, I’ve taken great detail in that.”
