Gov. Matt Bevin announced California-based Alorica plans to establish an 830-job customer engagement center in downtown Owensboro’s former BB&T building, marking one of the city’s largest-ever economic development projects.
“Alorica has extensive experience in operating customer engagement centers, and quickly concluded that they had found the right mix of positive, hard-working, forward-thinking people and an ideal location right here in Owensboro, Kentucky,” Gov. Bevin said. “In collaboration with the Commonwealth, Alorica will pioneer a workforce education partnership to train candidates for business and technical-service careers. We appreciate Alorica for its vision in coming to Kentucky and look forward to the tremendous economic impact the company will make on Owensboro, Daviess County and the entire Bluegrass State.”
In Owensboro, Alorica plans to hire 500 employees in the first 12 months of operations and expand to about 830 team members across three years. Renovations in the 52,000-square-foot BB&T building will create customized space for Alorica on floors 2-5. Company leaders expect to open the office next year.
“As the largest customer experience provider servicing the U.S. market, Alorica is in the people-to-people business,” said Greg Bush, division vice president for Alorica. “We create more than 600 million insanely great customer experiences every year. As we continue to grow, we need more great people to help fulfill our vision: to make lives better, one interaction at a time. The people of Owensboro, Kentucky will play a critical role as we expand our talented team of experts and transform our industry with endless passion, performance and possibilities.”
Alorica provides customer engagement services through voice, online, mobile telephone and social media to companies in nine key industries. Those include communications/media, retail/e-commerce, technology, travel, transportation, utilities, government, financial services and healthcare.
Formed in 1999 in Irvine, Calif., Alorica employs more than 92,000 people at 150 locations globally. The company invests heavily in training its team members and developing its leaders.
Alorica will lead a new workforce-training program in a business and technical service track. The company is patterning its partnership after the Greater Owensboro chapter of KY FAME, the Kentucky Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education.
KY FAME pairs private-sector companies with Kentucky higher-education institutions to provide education, training, certification and hands-on experience to students and adults seeking a career change. Through classroom education and apprenticeship-style job experience, KY FAME builds pipelines of experienced employees to meet the specific needs of its partner companies.
In Owensboro, Alorica recognized a thriving, forward-thinking city active in developing its downtown, riverfront and quality of life. Those qualities fit the company’s fun, family and community-oriented culture, Alorica representatives said. As well, the region’s workforce, with backgrounds in manufacturing and agriculture, offer the right mindset and attitude for the company.
Sen. Joe Bowen, of Ownesboro, welcomed the company.
“I am extremely pleased to hear of Alorica’s establishment here in Owensboro. It is a huge honor for our city to have such a large employer choose our community for its business ventures while modeling the workforce development partnership of KY FAME,” Sen. Bowen said. “I wish Alorica the best of luck in all their endeavors and I thank them for choosing Owensboro to be a partner in their success.”
Rep. Jim Glenn, of Ownesboro, praised the region for its readiness and Alorica for selecting the city.
“Today’s announcement is further proof that Owensboro is doing all of the right things when it comes to growing our economy,” Rep. Glenn said. “I want to thank Alorica for creating so many jobs, and it means a lot that our community can partner in a program to help ensure the company always has a workforce that is trained and ready to go. That kind of partnership is symbolic of what we are willing to do to help our area businesses thrive, and I’m proud to play a role in this cooperative effort.”
Owensboro Mayor Ron Payne said Alorica’s choosing Owensboro shows time and effort were well invested in planning and executing downtown development.
“This announcement today is an absolutely perfect fit for the vision we had when we designed the downtown development. For a company of this size, with over 150 locations and 92,000 employees throughout the world, to locate in downtown Owensboro is wonderful! This is the reason we invested in our downtown.”
Daviess County Judge-Executive Al Mattingly said Alorica’s new office will make a substantial economic impact over many years.
“We are excited to have been involved in the efforts to bring a company of this size to downtown Owensboro! We welcome this new corporate citizen to Daviess County,” Judge Mattingly said. “The opportunities and jobs they will bring to our community will impact our downtown and region for a long time to come.”
Alorica plans to use resources from the Kentucky Skills Network. Through the Kentucky Skills Network, companies can receive no-cost recruitment and job placement services, reduced-cost customized training and job training incentives. Last year, the Kentucky Skills Network trained more than 84,000 employees from more than 5,600 Kentucky companies.
For more information on Alorica, visit www.Alorica.com.
A detailed community profile for Daviess County can be viewed at www.bit.ly/DaviessCoKy.
Information on Kentucky’s economic development efforts and programs is available at www.ThinkKentucky.com. Fans of the Cabinet for Economic Development can also join the discussion on Facebook or follow on Twitter. Watch the Cabinet’s “This is My Kentucky” video on YouTube.