Why this N.J. health provider’s marketing team moved to Old City

After three years in Mt. Laurel, N.J., Eric Welsh moved his 10-person team to Old City.

Welsh, who runs digital marketing for South Jersey-based health provider BAYADA Home Health Care, wanted his team to be immersed in the Philly tech scene.

“It was crucially important to our success that we surround ourselves with like-minded technologists that understand the work that we are doing,” Welsh wrote in an email.

He wanted his team, composed of technologists like graphic designers, UX specialists and front-end developers (including Girl Develop It graduate LeeAnn Kinney), to be able to bump into people who work at SEER Interactive, Indy Hall and Mighty Engine — and they do all the time, he said.

Headquartered in Moorestown, N.J., BAYADA has more than 270 offices in 22 states. Its communications team is located in Mt. Laurel, where Welsh’s digital marketing team used to work until he relocated it last November.

Like other companies that trade suburban roots of the past for a return to the cities of today, it was also a matter of finding and retaining talent.

You don’t ask tech talent to commute to New Jersey — you go “to the center of the action,” Welsh said. It was something that founder Mark Baiada understood, Welsh said, which is why he supported the relocation. (Baiada is the brother of entrepreneur and venture capitalist Mel Baiada, with whom we recently caught up.)

The quality of a commute matters: Welsh has noticed that his team is no longer “burnt out from New Jersey traffic” when they arrive at work.

The team is now also near online marketing partners like Brain.do, an SEO firm that’s opening a nearby office soon, and Manayunk web dev firm Intuitive Company.