How does a company that delivers critical information to ocean-going ships decide to relocate from Florida to a landlocked state?

When Dryad Global was searching for a new headquarters location in 2016, the company made its selection based on a set of criteria, with resilient and reliable power and connectivity at the top of the list. With the most advanced automated electric grid in the U.S. and world-famous fiber optic services, Chattanooga was a no-brainer.

“We could've chosen anywhere…Chattanooga is a great place to grow a company. As we scale up as a company, EPB's fiber optic network gives us plenty of capacity for the future.”— Frank Fenner, Chief Commercial Officer, Dryad Global

From cargo to cruise ships, Dryad's customers can't afford to operate without the data the company delivers to them. Dryad, formerly International Maritime Security Associates, has thrived after nearly a decade in Chattanooga, growing their team by tenfold and earning an Early Innovator Award from CO.LAB in 2017.

With millions of points of data from across the globe, Dryad's decision to base operations in Chattanooga seems exceptionally fortuitous as EPB builds the nation's first commercially available quantum computing and networking center.