A company you’ve likely never heard of announced Wednesday it will expand its operations in Jacksonville, employ 200 people in high-paying technical jobs and invest about $9 million.
Terry Terhark, founder and CEO of randrr, said his company is developing a mobile app that will help people find a job.
The company’s name is an acronym for the concept behind the app: to “reinvent and revolutionize recruiting,” he said.
Terhark made the announcement at the JAX Chamber, joined by Gov. Rick Scott.
The governor said Jacksonville was chosen for randrr’s new office because of the high-tech talent pool.
Terhark agreed and said he’s hired about 20 software engineers, all from Jacksonville, who work in offices at Flagler Center, a Southside office park near Old St. Augustine Road and Interstate 95.
The company should hit the 200-job mark in 2018, he said.
What makes the announcement more notable is Terhark sought no city or state incentives for the expansion.
“He didn’t ask for anything,” said Jerry Mallot, president of JAXUSA Partnership, the chamber’s economic development division.
“Tech companies are different,” he explained. “They move fast.”
The company has an office in Findlay, Ohio, near Toledo, where Terhark previously started and then sold two recruiting businesses.
He said he was inspired to develop the company based on his daughter’s experience seeking employment through online job boards after she graduated from college.
“The job search can be painful,” he said.
Terhark described the randrr app as “a platform that helps people and companies connect.” It will “change the game for the recruiting industry,” he said.
The app will be free, with revenue generated from advertising.
Promotional material distributed at the news conference describes randrr as “a job search platform for the common good.”
The company’s website, randrr.com, says the vision for job search is “transparent and empowering, with actionable data” and the app will “create meaningful interactions between people and companies.”
Terhark said 50 percent of the staff additions will be recent college graduates and 50 percent experienced software developers and engineers. Jacksonville has what he’s looking for, he said.
“Knowing there is a population of technical people was very important,” he said.
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