New owner will reinforce Xe.

• Position: Eastern - Xe Services Inc.

For more than two years, Moyock-based Xe Services Inc. has been rattling government officials and economic developers in northeastern North Carolina. In late 2008, it sacked 52 workers and closed a newly built plant after it failed to land a key government contract. In March, it sold its 225-employee aviation division, and, in December, the new owner announced that the division would move to Florida. A week later, a New York-based holding company bought Xe, formerly Blackwater USA.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

But contrary to speculation that the company was heading down the drain, it appears Xe's new owners might beef up operations not only in its home county, Currituck, but also in neighboring Camden. USTC Holdings LLC "plans to invest further in the company primarily on the training side," says a spokeswoman who asked not to be named--Xe is no less secretive than Blackwater (Cover story, June 2007). Such a shift could distance Xe from the volatile private-security business that plunged it into hot water in Iraq and elsewhere. A federal judge in 2009 dismissed manslaughter charges against six employees in connection with the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, but a wrongful-death lawsuit is still pending.

Though controversial on the international scene, Xe is a valued corporate citizen in the job-hungry northeast. "They've been our largest taxpayer and employer for years," says Camden County Manager Randell Woodruff, who also serves...