Former SunRocket, MCI facility finds new firm

TeleTech Holdings Inc. on Aug. 29 held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 1720 E. Primrose St. – the former home of a SunRocket Inc. call center, which closed in July, and the previous home of a call center for New York-based MCI, which pulled its local operations in June 2006.

SunRocket’s closing displaced about 250 workers, and MCI had about 400 employees there.

Englewood, Colo.-based TeleTech, which offers front- and back-office business process outsourcing, has plans to eclipse those numbers by employing 350 people by Dec. 10 and between 700 and 1,000 workers down the road.

A Sept. 10 opening date is set, and hiring is under way.

Clayton Cooper, former site director at SunRocket, has been named to the same position at TeleTech and will have full responsibility of the facility.

The Springfield “delivery center” will serve one of TeleTech’s Fortune 50 information technology clients, which officials will not identify. Spokeswoman KC Higgins said the firm has been a TeleTech client for nine years, and the two have a long, established relationship.

“We understand there’s some fears, because of some other (companies) who have been in the center. We’re sensitive to that,” she said. “We’re not just willy-nilly expanding in there with some new program we’ve never done before.”

TeleTech is publicly traded on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol TTEC. The company’s shares closed Tuesday at $30.20, compared to a 52-week range of $14.34 to $40.41.

This story originally appeared in SBJ’s Aug. 29 free e-news Daily Update. Click here to register.