I moved to Arizona in October of 1988 from a very small town you’ve never heard of in central Illinois. Although I had visited several times growing up and even spent a summer here three years earlier, it was a huge shock for me. So many people, such a huge city, and so many opportunities. It was a lot to take in and a little overwhelming at first, but we knew that we had made the right decision. Leaving everything and everyone we had known in Illinois behind was hard but there simply weren’t any good jobs or real career options in the small town where we resided.
I attended junior high (7th and 8th grade) and high school in Glendale, a fairly large city located on the west border of Phoenix and have lived in North Phoenix ever since graduating. Phoenix and its’ surrounding metro cities have grown tremendously since I first moved here, and Phoenix is now larger than Los Angeles in terms of physical land size. Some great companies have chosen Phoenix as their home due to the fact that there are no major natural disasters here other than the occassional flooding from monsoons, which rarely happens.
Our winters are absolutely perfect with an average temperature of 75°, similar to our western neighbors in Southern California (San Diego is only 5 hours away, so we visit several times per year). Our summers are intensely hot with temperatures exceeding 110°, but as we say “it’s a dry heat” and it’s honestly not that bad once you’re used to it.
List of major corporations in Phoenix
This is a listing of major corporations based in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area.
Fortune 500
Avnet, Inc. - electronics
Phelps Dodge Corporation - mining
America West Airlines (upon completion of merger with US Airways Group Incorporated)
Allied Waste Industries, Inc. (Scottsdale)
Other Major Corporate Headquarters
Action Performance
Amkor Technology
Apollo Group, Inc.
Arizona Land Income Corporation
Arizona Republic
Aztar Corporation
Best Western
Circle K
Cold Stone Creamery
The Dial Corporation
Discount Tire Company
eFUNDS Corporation
Fender Musical Instruments (Scottsdale)
FINOVA group, Inc.
General Dynamics Systems
Go Daddy
Honeywell
Insight Enterprises, Inc.
Inter-Tel, Inc.
JDA Software Group, Inc.
Knight Transportation, Inc.
Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation
Mesa Airlines
MicroChip Technology, Inc.
Mobile Mini Inc.
Petsmart Inc
Ping Golf
Pinnacle West Capital Corp (Parent Company of APS)
P.F. Chang’s China Bistro
Poore Brothers, Inc. (Goodyear-based Potato Chip maker)
Swift Transportation Company
Taser International (Scottsdale)
Three-Five Systems, Inc.
Trujillo Corp. Industries
U-Haul
Viad Corporation
Companies with Large Presence
Albertsons
Amerco, Inc. (Parent of U-Haul)
American Express
America West Airlines (Tempe)
Bank of America
Bank One
Banner Health Systems (Formerly Samaritan Health System)
Bashas’, Inc.
Boeing
Circle K
Cox Communications
Cyclone Commerce, Inc.
Dial Corporation (Owned by Henkel KGaA)
Freescale (Spin-off of Motorola)
General Dynamics
Honeywell International
J.P. Morgan Chase (Acquired Bank One)
Intel
Kroger (Parent of Fry’s Food)
Mesa Airlines
Motorola
Pulte Homes, Inc. (Owner of Del Webb)
Qwest Communications
Shamrock Foods Company
Safeway
Southwest Airlines
Trujillo Corp. Industries
Wal-Mart
Wells Fargo
The Vanguard Group
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