Presque Isle call center to get new life N.B. telemarketer moving in, with potential for 300 jobs

PRESQUE ISLE – A Canadian telemarketing company is breathing new life into a former MBNA call center with the announcement Friday afternoon that it will locate its first site in the United States at the Green Hill Drive facility in this Aroostook County city.

Company officials anticipate the move will bring up to 300 jobs to the area and inject as much as $5 million into the local economy in wages alone.

“Wherever the opportunity is, that’s where we’ll try to expand,” Barry O’Donnell, president and CEO of Connect North America Corp., said Friday before making the announcement during a press conference at the Presque Isle center. “This facility was available and it was brand-new.”

The former MBNA site was emptied earlier this year after Bank of America acquired the company and shut down four call centers in Maine. That resulted in the loss of about 250 jobs at the Presque Isle site. Since then, local, regional and state officials have worked together to bring a new company to the building. They have been courting Connect North America since May.

The corporation, which reported earnings of $10 million (Can.) for 2005, was founded in 1992 in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, with 30 employees. A major expansion initiative implemented in 2001 has helped the outbound teleservices company to grow to approximately 450 employees with headquarters in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and a contact center in Bathurst, New Brunswick.

The company’s Web site describes Connect North America as “a leading provider of customized customer relationship management solutions.” As a telemarketing firm, the Canadian corporation makes outgoing calls for business and takes incoming inquiries from customers.

About 40 people, including Gov. John Baldacci and Jack Cashman, commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development, attended the Friday press conference to welcome O’Donnell and his company to the Presque Isle facility.

“This is a very exciting moment,” Presque Isle City Manager Tom Stevens said Friday before the announcement. “This has been a lot of hard work, and here’s the result.”

The Aroostook Partnership for Progress, established to enhance northern Maine’s economy, initially “generated the prospect” with Connect North America through contacts at a Presque Isle bank and steered it toward the empty MBNA building.

The Northern Maine Finance Corp. already had purchased the building from Bank of America- with financial assistance from the Northern Maine Development Commission and USDA-Rural Development – and had been working with several federal and state agencies and the city of Presque Isle to locate a new company there.

Working together, it took less than six months for officials to sell Connect North America on coming to the Presque Isle site.

“We promise you, you’re going to enjoy this decision,” Kris Doody-Chabre, APP chairwoman, said Friday during the announcement.

Officials pointed to the state-of-the-art facility and high-class work force in the area as motivating factors.

O’Donnell said the company plans to open as soon as the first quarter of 2007 with about 50 employees. Officials hope to implement a scheduled “ramp-up” to about 300 employees, 60 percent of them full-time positions. The corporation intends to provide workers with the opportunity to participate in a group health insurance plan and a defined-contribution pension plan.

“I’m sure that everybody’s going to be beating your door down,” Gov. Baldacci said to O’Donnell during the press conference.

“This is giving people an opportunity to get back to work, to provide for their families, and that’s why we do what we do,” the governor said.