T-Mobile hires management team

The center’s 13-member management team, hired during the last couple of months, received a certificate of occupancy and officially moved May 19 to the new facility at Airport Plaza, located at the corner of West Kearney and West Bypass. Employees previously worked out of the former Bank of America building off of Park Central Square.

Some finishing touches to the 77,000-square-foot building are being made, according to Mark Conrad, the center’s general manager, but its 150 employees are settling in just fine, he said.

About 50 of the employees are administrative and training personnel hired since January, and 90 are support representatives that began an eight-week training course May 22.

Conrad plans to hire about 550 more workers, or as many as customer needs demand, he said. He expects to be fully staffed by late 2007.

Conrad has had no trouble filling positions so far, as he said the Springfield market offers a qualified and unwavering work force.

“T-Mobile always looks for the best of the best, and so far that has not been a problem,” he said. “The work ethic here in Springfield is just next to none, from what we’ve seen already.”

He’s had a little help from some former competitors.

MCI, which employed 400 at its Springfield call center, will close June 30 while McLeod USA, which employed 90 at its call center, closed earlier this month. Conrad said he expects many of those displaced workers will have the skills necessary to work at T-Mobile.

“I’m sure there will be some great resources to come out of these call centers that are closing that will fit in very well with T-Mobile,” he said.

Conrad said about 80 percent of the 150 employees hired so far are from the area, and he intends to hire as many local employees as possible, keeping in line with T-Mobile USA’s broader commitment to hire within North America.

Ryan Mooney, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s manager of business development, acknowledged that hiring locally has its advantages, but he said that more importantly, T-Mobile is hiring in a part of town that until recently has seen little job growth.

“It’s great to have a major employer on the north side,” he said. “It will hopefully balance it out and provide an opportunity for folks that live in the northern part of Greene County.”

Potential employees also could be drawn to the T-Mobile working environment.

The $20 million center, for which construction began last October, has a fitness center with showers, cafeteria, recreational area with video games and flat-screen televisions, quiet room for resting, mothers’ room for nursing and state-of-the-art equipment.

“I keep saying I can’t believe I get paid to do this job, because it’s an amazing environment,” Conrad said. “It’s just a beautiful facility.”

The 13-member management team includes four faces with local ties: Michael Hunter, leadership development specialist, who previously was manager of training and development with Missouri State University’s Management Development Institute; Becky Spain, incentive manager, who previously was manager of work force and business development at Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce; Jillaine Wiborg-Brown, learning and development manager, who once worked as training manager at MCI in Springfield; and Matt Wood, team manager, who previously worked at Chase Credit Card Services in Springfield.

Other managers are Susan Boekhoff, resource planning manager; Karim Farouki, team manager; Ron Freeman, team manager; Chris Patterson, business support manager; April Schafer, team manager; Fernando Sustaita, operations senior manager; Dee Ann Thompson, human resources manager; and Carin White, facility manager.

Led by Conrad, the management team has a lofty goal for the center.

“I want to have a line around the building of people waiting to come into T-Mobile,” he said.