Microdyne poised to add 275 jobs at Orono site

BANGOR – Microdyne Outsourcing, a customer service and technical support company, will be adding 275 jobs at its Orono facility once it completes a shutdown of its Augusta operations in March.

On Wednesday, the California-based Microdyne notified its 275 employees in Augusta that it will close its facility there by March 14, and all of the workers were offered positions in Orono.

Those workers are going to be needed in Orono, according to Microdyne President John Oakes, and perks such as traveling or moving allowance and van-pooling are being considered to convince the Augusta workers to commute or move north.

In a telephone interview from Microdyne’s headquarters in Torrance, Calif., on Wednesday, Oakes said it’s possible another 150 to 180 more positions will be created in Orono in the next few months if the company secures two major contracts from two new clients.

And an announcement last October that the company would be hiring 300 people by the end of the year didn’t bring enough qualified applicants through the doors, Oakes said.

About 225 people were hired, and the remaining 75 positions remain vacant and need to be filled, he said.

In the last few months, Microdyne also hired 92 new people in Augusta who weren’t notified at the time of their hiring that the facility would be closing.

“When they were hired, no, they did not know that,” said Elizabeth McLemore, Microdyne’s spokeswoman.

McLemore said she does not know yet how many of the employees in Augusta will move or commute to Orono. But she said the company expects its Orono operations to grow by 275 people whether they are from the Augusta site or new recruits.

Even though the company is finding it difficult to hire qualified applicants, Oakes said he remains confident that the Bangor area labor pool will support the company’s growth strategies. Microdyne, however, has to do its part by diversifying the type of work employees perform to prevent them from experiencing burnout, he said. Employee burnout is the leading cause of job attrition in the call center industry, he said.

“Basically our plan is to diversify our book of business there,” Oakes said.

Orono Town Manager Gerry Kempen said Microdyne’s growth is welcome.

“Hey, that’s fantastic,” said Kempen, about the transfer of jobs from Augusta. “That’s good news for us.”

Microdyne’s closure of its Augusta facility coincides with the expiration of a lease the company has on the building. Oakes, in a statement, said the company was “closing an older building that was expensive to operate and poorly adapted to our needs, and concentrating the work in a building that was purpose-built for contact center operations.”

Since Microdyne purchased bankrupt EnvisioNet Computer Services Inc. for $10.7 million in late August 2001, the company has placed its focus on the Orono facility. In October, the company inked a seven-year lease with the building’s owner, the Orono Economic Development Corp., and announced the addition of 300 new jobs.

Microdyne currently employs 525 people in Orono, up from the 400 people who were working there when the sale with EnvisioNet was completed more than 16 months ago.

But Microdyne’s statewide work force of 800 people is lower than the 960 who were employed when the company purchased EnvisioNet. In its prime during the spring of 2001, EnvisioNet employed nearly 2,200 people in Brunswick, Augusta and Orono.

In a message to employees in Augusta, Oakes said the transfer of jobs “is no reflection of the work that you are doing or the financial condition of our business, which is stronger than at any point in our history.”

Added Oakes, “We continue to have jobs available to high achievers that want to work with some of America’s best corporations.”

Microdyne provides customer service, technical support, logistics and depot repair services for high-technology companies such as Microsoft and Dell Computers. The company is owned by L-3 Communications Holdings, whose primary business is aerospace and defense contracting.