By EMILY REED

Special to the Reporter

HOOVER – ProctorU, an online proctoring company, has opened in Hoover after moving its headquarters from Livermore, California.

The Hoover location has 130 employees, and there are about 600 nationwide, according to a press release from the company.

“We have had a presence in Hoover for most of our company’s history,” said Franklin Hayes, director of marketing for ProctorU. “We were founded in Hoover as part of the online school Andrew Jackson University in 2008. In 2011, we moved to an office in Pelham, and in 2012, we moved back to Hoover in a larger facility in Riverchase. In 2014, we expanded again and moved to another building with a larger floor plan.”

Hayes said the Hoover office houses most of the company’s executive, sales and marketing staff members.

In July 2016, ProctorU hired Birmingham-based CEO Scott McFarland. Prior to joining ProctorU, McFarland served as the chief operating officer for PerfectServe, a clinical communications platform in healthcare.

McFarland brings to the company more than 25 years of executive leadership experience in the healthcare and technology industries, according to the release. He has held executive positions at Stanley Black and Decker, McKesson Health IT and Emageon, a public Birmingham healthcare IT company later acquired by Merge Healthcare Solutions Inc.

“This was a move that made sense for us on a variety of levels,” ProctorU’s founder and chief strategy officer Jarrod Morgan said in a release. “One, most of our senior leadership team is located here in the Birmingham area, which simplifies things on an operational level. Second, Birmingham is the birthplace of Proctor. It was our original home. Finally, this is a great opportunity for us to really represent the Birmingham community.”

ProctorU provides distance proctoring services for colleges, universities and certification organizations that offer examinations online.

ProctorU offers live, person-to-person, real-time monitoring to roughly 1,000 colleges, universities and certification organizations, according to the release.

The service allows students to take their exams from nearly anywhere in a secured environment.

ProctorU operates proctoring centers in Folsom, California, Livermore, California, and Hoover.

ProctorU is located at 2200 Riverchase Center #600 in Birmingham.

For more information, call (855) 772-8678 or visit ProctorU.com.