Cary company expands to Chicago

HumanCentric, a Cary company that provides services and design work to help improve commercial products, has opened an office in Chicago - the company's second worldwide location.

CEO Barry Beith, who launched HumanCentric in 2000 after buying the assets of a California firm, says the office has a half-dozen workers. The overall company, which recently moved into bigger, 17,000-square-foot digs in Cary, now employs more than 50 people, he says.

Many of HumanCentric's biggest clients, including Motorola, Abbott Labs and GE Healthcare, have operations in the Chicago area, Beith says. So it made sense to build an office in the city.

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"We are built on a pillar of growth," he says. "... And we are very much believers in brick-and-mortar offices where we can be closer to clients."

Money for the expansion came from existing business, Beith says. HumanCentric, which projects revenue between $6 million and $7 million this year, is debt-free and has been profitable for the past 3 1/2 years.

Beith acknowledges that, given the current economic downturn and slowdown in consumer spending, it might seem odd for a company that offers services to retailers to open a new office.

But he says he hopes the deal will pay for itself - and even add 10 percent to 15 percent to HumanCentric's top line this year. The company grew despite being founded in the midst of the dot-com bust, he says, and can continue to do so.

"I can't predict the economy, and I've survived this long," Beith says. "I may as well keep doing what we keep doing well. I'm probably the cockeyed optimist, but I believe that we'll come out of this a better, stronger company."