Mark Wesley, CEO of South Carolina solar-powered security fence maker AMAROK, speaks on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, at the site of the company's planned new $70 million headquarters in Columbia's BullStreet District. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Finance and accounting, sales, project management and customer service positions are among 300 new jobs an electric fence maker will be seeking to fill as it expands its Columbia headquarters.
AMAROK announced Tuesday its plans to build a new $70 million, 125,000-square-foot office building in the BullStreet District downtown. The location will hold corporate offices. No manufacturing will occur at the downtown Columbia location.
The security company, which employed 70 South Carolinians eight years ago, today boasts a Columbia-area workforce of 300 people. With plans to double its Palmetto State employment numbers over the next five years, the company is outgrowing its current space inside the University of South Carolina’s IBM Innovation Center on Assembly Street.
CEO Mark Wesley did not disclose a salary range for these new positions.
Wesley hopes the new building will open in late 2028.
AMAROK’s fences are solar-powered, making them more immune to power outages and useful on the edge of properties where there may not be electric service to deliver a jolt to any attempted trespassers. A grid system for alarms pinpoints where on the fence a breach has happened and directs cameras to that area.
The company has contracts with more than 9,000 commercial business customers across the United States and Canada.
“Most of our customers have valuable assets that they store outside on a lot. So, when you think about our typical customer, it’s an equipment rental company, a trucking company, landscaping company, data centers, distribution centers, even utilities,” Wesley said. “That’s really what fuels our growth.”
In exchange for its investment, the state Department of Commerce approved income tax credits worth $1,500 per new job, as well as a $200,000 state-funded grant to help cover site work and building construction.
Richland County also locked in a 6% property tax with no change in the millage rate for AMAROK for 30 years. The company also can further buy down its property tax bill by another 50% for the first decade of that agreement.
AMAROK, formerly known as Electric Guard Dog, was founded by Bill Mullis in 1973 as an actual guard dog service, renting out the dogs overnight and picking them up each morning for a monthly fee.
Mullis sold the business in 2007 and today it is owned by a pair of private equity firms.
In addition to its downtown headquarters, AMAROK also has a production center in a Bluff Road industrial park on the south end of Columbia, where it produces and assembles its fencing and other security products.
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Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
