An online learning company said Tuesday it will expand its Cary operation, creating 450 jobs over the next five years.

Relias Learning LLC offers online occupational training and continuing education modules in health care, public safety and social services, including certification programs for states around the country, to more than 5,000 organizations and 3 million people in the United States, and it recently expanded to the United Kingdom and Germany. The company says more than 50 million of its courses have been taken since its inception.

The positions created by the $4.5 million expansion will include research and development, sales and marketing and administrative staff. Officials said the growth will boost the area economy by $39 million.

Relias has qualified for a Job Development Investment Grant of up to $5.3 million. JDIG rebates some of the employee withholding taxes to a company that meets annual hiring and investment targets over 12 years. Cary also has approved $50,000 in incentives for the company, officials said.

“Since moving to Cary in 2012, Relias Learning’s staff has grown twenty-fold, and we now have almost 300 Relians here at our company headquarters,” Chief Executive Jim Triandiflou said in a statement. “Our people and the culture they have helped build are the leading drivers of our success, and this grant will be instrumental to our continued growth and expansion plans.”

(Watch a video overview of Relias at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Lwj-bxwo5vY )

Gov. Pat McCrory presented Triandiflou with a wooden bowl fashioned from a tree that had to be taken down outside the State Capitol.