AOL may not have been born and raised in Loudoun, but the company matured, got educated, married Time Warner and then divorced – right here in our backyard.

The company – now branded as Aol.—will celebrate its 25-year anniversary May 24. It’s been in Loudoun for 14 of those 25 years.

AOL’s online legacy is well-known, as it served as the gateway for tens of millions of web users to use online communications tools for the first time and explore the web. It practically invented mass consumer e-mail (immortalized by the 1998 movie “You’ve Got Mail!”), and pioneered consumer adoption of instant messaging and chat rooms. It made the Internet reachable and embraceable.

The company’s offline contributions to Loudoun County – boosting its tax base, hiring its residents, attracting additional businesses and giving to nonprofits – are less well known but, in a local context, just as substantial.

When AOL moved to Loudoun in 1996, in a heartbeat, it helped changed the business and economic development dynamic of a little-known county.

“AOL put Loudoun on the map as a place for corporations to be,” said Loudoun Supervisor Andrea McGimsey, who worked at AOL from 1998 to 2003 before being elected to the board in 2007. “AOL was a linchpin—a foundational corporation here. It put us on par with California in the digital age.”

Dale Polen Myers, who was chairman of the Board of Supervisors in 1996, calls AOL “our conduit that started businesses believing in coming to Loudoun.” She recalls that shortly after AOL’s move, companies like MCI/WorldCom and Orbital moved or expanded here. Myers says AOL actively helped Loudoun reach out to other companies.

As AOL grew almost exponentially online, so did its Dulles complex and employee base. On its campus, it built the Dulles Technology Center, and added five multifloor Class A office buildings, plus two day-care centers. It also purchased an additional 70 acres of land next to its complex in 2002, and leased more office space at Loudoun Gateway on Route 28 and Route 606.

And it filled those offices with residents of Loudoun and the surrounding areas. At its peak, AOL had 5,000 employees working in Dulles. In its 14 years here, it has had a total of 13,500 employees at the location – plus thousands more contractors.

The company and its employees also supported the growth of a network of smaller businesses that serve AOL as its clients, vendors and partners from food vendors to builders to consultants. Tony Howard, president of the Loudoun Chamber of Commerce, says this helped create jobs and generate revenue for small businesses in the process.

McGimsey, who handled partner operations for AOL, said that the company had “over 800 partners in many different industries” nationally and locally. “We brought multimillion-dollar deals to Loudoun.”

AOL also helped spawn what is now a booming industry in Loudoun. When the company built its data center here in 1997, it was the county’s first, says Al Nielsen, AOL’s vice president for corporate services.

Buddy Rizer, the county’s business development manager, said there is now about 3 million square feet of total data center space in Loudoun, and more than 20 data centers.

That industry now sees 50 percent of the world’s Internet traffic pass through the county.

“The company generated huge benefits for the business community—and for our tax base,” Howardsaid .

Through personal property taxes on pricey technology equipment and real estate taxes, the company put many millions of dollars directly into the county’s coffers.

In 2009 alone, records from the commissioner of the revenue show that AOL paid the county $7.75 million in personal property taxes and real estate taxes on the 14 parcels of land it owns the county.

When AOL took its headquarters out of the county, that was a large blow, but even then, it left a pool of skilled employees for other businesses to draw from. Thousands of former employees infused their expertise into new jobs, from government workers to teachers. Some started a variety of startups throughout the region.

“All these AOL people and their spinoff businesses helps Loudoun continue to be a leader in communications and IT,” McGimsey says.

AOL’s presence in Loudoun is smaller than it was in its heyday, but it has emerged from storms boasting 112 million monthly visitors to its web properties, almost 5 million paying U.S. subscribers and $3.2 billion in revenue in 2009.

“There is still tremendous cache in AOL’s name and legacy that we are benefiting from in Loudoun County today,” Howard says. “AOL in many ways helped put Loudoun on the map. AOL still matters.”

Company timeline

1985 – AOL is formed as Quantum Computer Services in Vienna
1989 – Members for the first time hear “Welcome. You’ve got mail!” and Instant Messenger launches
1991 – Quantum is renamed “America Online”
1993 – AOL CD-ROM mailings make AOL a household name. Steve Case becomes CEO.
1995 – AOL reaches 1 million members.
1996 – AOL moves to Loudoun County, occupying current HQ building. AOL subscriber growth takes off, reaching 5 million members. AOL launches Buddy List and the Running Man appears.
1997 – AOL introduces AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).
1999 – AOL begins massive expansion on its Dulles campus over the next few years.
2000 – AOL and Time Warner announce landmark $164 billion deal to merge. AOL becomes first Internet firm to join Fortune 500, at #337.
2001 – AOL completes acquisition of Time Warner. Internet bubble bursts and value of many online companies plummets.
2002 – AOL acquires 70 acres of undeveloped land abutting its Dulles campus. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission launch investigations into AOL’s accounting practices. AOL hits its all-time high subscriber peak in September, with more than 26.7 million U.S. customers.
2003 – AOL Time Warner decides to remove “AOL” from the company’s name. Steve Case steps down as chairman of the parent company
2004 – Wegmans opens across from AOL campus, followed by Target and dozens of retail outlets catering in part to AOL’s massive employee base
2006 – AOL offers e-mail, software, content and most services for free. AOL has 15 million paying U.S. subscribers. America Online is retired as a brand name, becoming “AOL.”
2007 – AOL announces relocation of corporate headquarters to New York City and begins vacating office space on its campus.
2009 – Time Warner spins off AOL into independent company. AOL rebrands as “Aol.” Raytheon announces deal to occupy empty office buildings on AOL campus.
2010 – AOL marks 25th anniversary May 24. AOL now has 4.6 million U.S. subscribers, and 112 million monthly visitors to its various web properties.
2011 – AOL will celebrate 15 years in Loudoun.

Editor’s note: The writer is a former employee of AOL.