Manufacturers often can operate more cheaply outside New York state, as the exodus of jobs has testified.

But when it comes to finding new corporate headquarters, a decision that Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc. made in 2002, the calculus of moving becomes more complex and less dependent on the bottom line.

The equation led the company, the U.S. marketing arm of Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd. of Tokyo, to remain in Westchester County. Fuji opted to leave offices they had occupied since 1986 in Elmsford for a much larger headquarters in Valhalla, where today it employs about 325.

In making its decision, the company decided against sites in Connecticut, North Carolina and Texas, said Darrell Palm, Fuji's vice president of procurement and operations services. All three states had offered financial incentives for Fuji to move its operations, as did the economic development office of New York state.

What tipped the company's decision to remain in Westchester was the likelihood that 70 percent of its staff would leave the company rather than move to a distant state, Palm said.

"There's very little fat here to begin with," he said. Some important functions are handled by a minimum of staff, and the loss of even a few would mean a big drop in corporate intelligence, he said.

Although Fuji has an operation in Stamford, Conn., that area was ruled out because it would entail too long a commute for employees who live in northern New Jersey. Some already have an 80-minute ride across the Tappan Zee Bridge and through road construction on interstates 87 and 287.

In the end, New York state offered a $2.65 million incentive plan to keep Fuji in Westchester, a package that Palm described as similar to those offered elsewhere. New York's package included $1.9 million in tax breaks through the Westchester County Industrial Development Agency and a $750,000 state grant.

In return, Fuji agreed to add 252 jobs by 2007. It has invested $8.4 million in improvements at its new location and bought an additional $3.4 million in equipment.

In signing a 10-year lease at The Summit corporate park in Valhalla, Fuji moved into 164,000 square feet of space at a time when a recently formed subsidiary was growing rapidly, Palm said. Its Innovation Graphic Systems supports the printing industry, providing everything from ink to aluminum press plates. Local employment in the subsidiary has expanded to 65 from 17 in August 2002.

The company also moved its Fujicolor Processing headquarters, which had shared offices in Elmsford, to a new site on Route 119 in the Tarrytown area. About 60 people work there.

The move to Valhalla took place in April, and it could be argued that it happened in the nick of time.

The new headquarters had 12 hours of battery backup and a computer data center capacity that would allow for an orderly shutdown of operations in the the event of a massive power outage. Four months after the move, on Aug. 14-15, that's exactly what happened throughout much of the northeastern United States and Canada.

"It was nice we could demonstrate to executive management there was a return on their investment," Palm said. "We just squeezed in under the wire."