Auria, an aerospace defense company, is now setting its sights on Virginia. The Colorado Springs-based company is planning to open its East Coast headquarters in Fairfax County early next year.

Auria already has a facility in the region that develops products for commercial and military space clients, but CEO Damian DiPippa told WTOP the time has come to expand.

“Even though we’ve got a development facility in Warrenton, Virginia,” he said, “it became apparent that we needed to have a kind of East Coast headquarters in a high-tech area in the Washington D.C. area, and Reston just was a perfect location.”

DiPippa said he’s drawn to Northern Virginia’s dynamic technology community as well as its access to mass transit for his employees.

“It’s a high-tech zone,” he said. “We’re going to be right there near the Reston Metro.” Auria plans to spend $1.8 million on building the new facility, which will give DiPippa and his team “easy access” to decision makers from Capitol Hill to the Pentagon.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced Auria’s new East Coast headquarters, saying, “My administration looks forward to a longstanding partnership with Auria as the company expands, creates dozens of new jobs for Virginians, and advances technologies that support our national security.”

DiPippa also thinks Northern Virginia is a “great place” for hiring high-tech individuals. Already employing around 500 people, he’s now actively seeking experts in software development, artificial intelligence enablement, orbital operations, radio frequency communications, and digital ground infrastructure.

DiPippa’s goal is to create at least 78 new jobs for the Reston facility, and maybe even more.

“As we continue to bid on more work,” he said, “we are really that technology disruptor coming in as a mid-sized agile company, and so we are bidding on a lot of work now and into 2027.”

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