Hunt Air, the 12th fastest growing company in Oregon in 1999 and one of Forbes Magazine’s top 500 fastest growing private companies in the nation that year, is considering moving to a 400,000-square-foot campus-style facility in the Redmond Airport Industrial Park.

The facility would be more than 1-times larger than the Bend River Mall, and Hunt Air would rival the Redmond School District as the city’s largest employer.

The 7-year-old company, which operates out of buildings scattered throughout Tigard and Tualatin, makes ”clean room” technology for high-tech companies that require ultra-sterile environments for manufacturing computer semiconductors.

The company boasts annual profits in excess of $100 million, employs more than 600 people and saw a 638 percent increase in revenue between 1994 and 1998. It now does business with such high-tech behemoths as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Tektronix and provides services to companies in the aerospace, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Officials at Hunt Air say they want to relocate their entire operation to one central location and have narrowed the list of prospective sites to less than half a dozen, of which Redmond is a leading candidate.

”Redmond is definitely on the short list,” said company President Dave Benson.

Also on the list is Camas, Wash., and several sites in the Portland area.

While moving the operation east of the mountains would be more expensive than staying in the Portland area about $2 million more the area’s scenic beauty and friendly atmosphere might make the added expense worth the trouble, said Benson, a former Intel engineer who started the company out of his home.

”I, personally, think Central Oregon is the place to be,” he said. ”Now, whether it’s the right business decision is what we’re going through currently.”

Redmond has offered Hunt Air a 3-year waiver of its property taxes with the option of a 5-year waiver depending on the level of wages offered by the company, said Bob Quitmeier, community development director. If the company offers higher wages, it might qualify for the higher break, he said. The airport industrial park is one of 30 enterprise zones statewide. The zones allow communities to offer tax incentives to new businesses.

In addition to the moving expense, Benson said the Redmond location also presents problems finding an adequate pool of trucks and airplanes to transport equipment.

He said company officials hope to decide where to move in the next two months. If they choose Redmond for their new home, the company would likely complete the move to Central Oregon by the summer of 2002.

While Hunt Air would bring most of its employees with them to a new facility in Redmond, there would still be some positions the company would fill with local talent, Benson said.

”As we continue to grow, we’ll need to fill those positions,” he said.

Besides one of the largest employers in Redmond, Hunt Air would also be one of the most conscientious, said Redmond Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Eric Sande, who has been working to attract Hunt Air since 1996.

”It’s just a fabulous company with tremendous employee values and community values,” he said. ”It’s definitely going to be a huge community effort to bring them here.”