Joby Aviation debuts new Santa Cruz campus

SANTA CRUZ — Fourteen years ago, an idea took flight in the Santa Cruz Mountains as a small team of seven engineers worked out of a barn to explore new technologies.

These brainstorms gave way to a partnership with NASA to develop a electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, which the team at Joby Aviation has been diligently working on for more than a decade. With a crew that has grown to more than 1,500 employees, that necessitated a move to a much larger space, which was secured last fall with a $25.5 million purchase of the Plantronics building at 345 Encinal St. To celebrate this acquisition, the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce, local elected officials and Joby employees presided over a ribbon-cutting and hosted tours of the new headquarters.

Founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt told the Sentinel that the idea for the Joby aircraft stemmed from memories of commuting from the mountains just to attend Gateway School.

“I loved where I went to school, and I loved where I lived, but they were a long way apart,” he said. “I had a dream of building a better way to get from A to B from the school I loved to the home I loved.”

That dream was for an all-electric shuttle for vertical take-off that is both energy efficient and affordable but also quiet and convenient. Joby began operating out of Bonny Doon, secured a NASA partnership in 2012 and later acquired partnerships with Toyota and Delta, opened a manufacturing center in Marina and offices and workshops in San Carlos, Munich, Washington, D.C., and on Delaware Avenue in Santa Cruz. The company even debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021.

With this growth, Joby was now tasked with finding a new corporate headquarters.

“We’ve gone from a few people 10 years ago to 1,500 people today,” said Oliver Jones, Joby’s head of marketing, communications and brand. “The main thing we need is space. It’s gonna serve as a base for our corporate headquarters, but we also do a lot of research and development work here, so it basically gives us space to make sure that we can develop the best possible aircraft today and in the future.”

In the end, Joby settled on a portion of the Plantronics building on Encinal Street. Plantronics, founded in 1961, is a supplier of audio communications equipment, including headsets that have been historically used by airline pilots and astronauts, notably the crew of Apollo 11. It was through a Plantronics headset that Neil Armstrong uttered his famous speech upon landing on the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

In 2019, Plantronics acquired Polycom and changed its name to Poly. Three years later, the company was acquired by HP Inc., and Joby acquired the campus for a one-year lease to Poly.

“Being able to take on such an iconic campus is an incredible gift,” said Bevirt.

Jones said the new campus “marks our long-term commitment to Santa Cruz and the local community.”

Monday’s ceremony was attended by many local officials including Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley, Vice Mayor Renee Golder; Councilmembers Sandy Brown, Sonja Brunner, Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson and Scott Newsome; county Supervisors Justin Cummings and Manu Koenig, Marina Mayor Bruce Delgado and representatives of Assemblyman Robert Rivas, state Sen. John Laird and Rep. Jimmy Panetta’s offices.

“It is a wonderful opportunity when you get over a hundred people to come out on a Monday afternoon in sunny Santa Cruz,” joked Chamber CEO Casey Beyer underneath the gray cloudy backdrop. “We didn’t bring the sun, but we brought something else. We brought a special company.”

Juliane Farrand, Joby’s head of people, said she started at the company when it was just “50 people in an unheated barn in the middle of Bonny Doon.”

“We’ve had several moves since then and finally landed at our dream location here in the heart of Santa Cruz,” she said. “We are so grateful for the warm welcome we’ve received from everyone and especially today for the Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce for their incredible partnership.”

Keeley said it was a special day for the city, one that had been designated as Joby Aviation Day. He praised Bevirt for choosing to stay in Santa Cruz, rather than being allured by San Francisco or Silicon Valley, to bring the company’s plans into fruition.

“It goes from a concept in your head to a real thing in the real world that, in fact, is going to be game changing in terms of transportation, in terms of emission reductions,” he said. “For us here in Santa Cruz, it’s about really good-paying jobs here and in Marina.”

Keeley also said Joby would provide other benefits such as a diverse workforce and living wages.

“This is not only about massive amounts of capital investment by venture capitalists and by geniuses like JoeBen and other folks with E.E.’s and other kinds of degrees,” he said. “This flows throughout the community. The benefits of this are not only worldwide, they are really important here in our community and in the mayor’s community in Marina.”

Bevirt said he looked forward to Joby bringing economic vitality to the community.

“We hope to be able to do our part as stewards of this facility and to continue to do great things in it,” he said. “It’s an honor and a privilege to be able to continue the legacy here.”

Attendees got to briefly tour the 162,000-square-foot facility and enjoy beverages, flatbread pizzas, empanadas and artichoke beignets in the courtyard.