GRAND RAPIDS, MI – A Grand Rapids-based software development company is opening an office in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Atomic Object, launched in 2001, announced that Taylor Vanden Hoek and Ryan Abel will lead the expansion as the company’s new managing partners. Vanden Hoek and Abel, both longtime software developers, pitched the expansion to company management.

Co-CEO Michael Marsiglia said the expansion makes sense and Raleigh-Durham is “an ideal market to grow in.” The company’s other co-CEO is Shawn Crowley.

“They were nervous when they came to us with the idea, but for me and Shawn it was a gift,” Marsiglia said in a press release. “They work well together; they have complementary skills; they are incumbents; they are coachable, hungry and smart.

Atomic Object creates custom applications for computers, mobile phones, the web and custom devices, according to a press release. The company has 90 employees and offices in Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Chicago.

Crowley said the expansion creates new opportunities for Atomic Object.

“Continuing to make Atomic a more interesting place to work in – and to work with – fuels our expansion into exciting new markets,” he said in a press release.

Vanden Hoek says she looks forward to the expansion.

“Ten years from now, I plan to look around me and see all these faces I haven’t met yet,” she said in a press release. “I see how each of them supports each other in the office to encourage everyone to do their best. It would bring me so much joy to stand there and watch this happen around me.

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