Leidos, the global technology giant behind the body scanning machines found at airports across the country, celebrated its expansion into Port San Antonio on Friday.
The $14.4 billion civil, defense, health and intelligence company, which employs 46,000 people across the globe and is based in Reston, Virginia, will initially add about 100 employees to its intelligence group at the Port, said Anil Tailor, senior vice president with Leidos Intelligence Group.
Tailor, who oversees cyber and signal intelligence solutions, said the Port San Antonio location will provide systems and solutions support to the Air Force and the U.S. Department of Defense.
“That will include employing folks like network engineers, system engineers, cybersecurity specialists, programmers and developers,” he said. Most of the San Antonio-based jobs listed on Leidos’ website require Top Secret security clearance.
Tailor said Leidos hopes to hire locally. He said the company has a good relationship with UTSA, which opened its National Security Collaboration Center and School of Data Science at its downtown campus earlier this year.
Leidos already has a large presence in San Antonio through its subsidiary QTC Management, which provides health and disability examination services for departing and retired military service members. QTC employs more than a thousand people in San Antonio, a Leidos spokesman confirmed.
The expansion, first announced by Port San Antonio President and CEO Jim Perschbach in June, builds on the strategy Perschbach has been nurturing over the past several years to create a thriving ecosystem at the 1,900-acre defense, tech, aeronautics and education campus.
Leidos joins a growing list of tenants at the Port, including Boeing, StandardAero, CNF Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Knight Aerospace and Accenture Federal Services. More than 18,000 people work at the Port, according to a 2018 report from the Texas Comptroller’s Office.
The grand opening comes just three weeks after the Port celebrated the expansion of IntelliGenesis, the most recent cybersecurity firm to plant a stake on the 1,900 acre campus, which is also home to the 16th Air Force.
The day before the celebration, the Port conducted a height test for what officials say will be the tallest and most technologically advanced building — and certainly the most futuristic-looking — in southwest San Antonio by sending an air balloon aloft.
The black and yellow balloon, which was tethered to the ground — and whose presence was cleared with the U.S. Air Force’s air traffic control tower at Kelly Field — rose almost 200 feet in the air, approximating the height of the planned office tower.
The height test is the latest step toward advancing the design and engineering of the building, officials said. Using a bright yellow and black balloon also offered the designers and Port team an opportunity to see how observable the building will be — from the Port itself to nearby neighborhoods and the surrounding community.
