(Prineville) – Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski announced today that Facebook, the world’s leading social networking service with more than 350 million users, will locate a multi-million dollar data center in Prineville. The facility, which will help store and route information posted by users, is expected to create more than 200 jobs during its 12-month construction phase. When finished, the data center will employ at least 35 full-time workers and dozens more part-time and contract employees. Additional construction phases may be possible in the future, depending on business needs.

“This is great news for Prineville and really the entire state. I am pleased to welcome this leading Internet technology company to Oregon,” said Governor Kulongoski. “The stable, family-wage jobs and economic stimulus they will provide to this area during construction are a bright spot as this nation and this state climb out of this recession.”

Governor Kulongoski said the state has been working with Facebook’s representatives for a number of months to help bring together the land, utilities and incentives to make the project a success.

“After a rigorous review process of sites across the West Coast, Facebook concluded that Prineville offered the best package of resources – including a suitable climate for environmental cooling, renewable power resources, available land, talented regional workforce and supportive business environment,” said Tom Furlong, Director of Site Operations for Facebook. “The City of Prineville, Crook County and the State of Oregon have all been tremendously persuasive in helping us make this decision. We look forward to joining the community and working with them to provide faster, more reliable and more robust service to people around the world who rely on Facebook to connect and share.”

In keeping with Oregon’s reputation for environmental leadership, the building will be designed to LEED gold standards. Most importantly, it will employ innovative cooling and power management technologies that will make it one of the most energy efficient data centers in the United States served by Pacific Power’s impressive and growing portfolio of renewable energy resources.

“I thank Facebook for choosing Oregon and am hopeful this decision will act as a big “open for business sign” for other companies in this quickly growing field,” said Kulongoski. “This is a great example of how the public and private sector work together to create economic opportunity for Oregon communities.”

More information about the project as well as ongoing updates will be available at Facebook.com/prinevilledatacenter