Baker Group, an Ankeny-based design-build contractor, announced the opening of a new office in Kansas City, Mo. The new location is Baker Group’s first office outside of Iowa, bringing its total locations to five. The expansion aims to serve the growing industrial base in the region, with a focus on industrial automation, according to a news release. “This is a big step for us,” Jarod Stockel, Baker Group’s vice president of automation, said in a prepared statement. “While we are headquartered in Iowa, we are committed to following good clients anywhere and in doing so, we have seen more and more work coming from the Kansas City metro. It made sense to us to establish a physical presence there so we can more efficiently serve the region’s growing industrial base, especially data centers and mission critical facilities.” Baker Group’s industrial automation services include systems integration, supervisory control and data acquisition and process control and instrumentation.