ROGERS -- Northwest Arkansas' home-grown businesses led the area's job growth for decades, but the recruitment of Serco Inc. from outside the region marks a major and welcome change in that pattern, leaders and analysts say.
Serco is a major contractor for managing personnel records and other data. The company's government contracting division won the contract to manage insurance applications under the federal Affordable Care Act.
Serco started a nationwide search for a new location, settling on Rogers as one of several and expecting to hire 600 or so workers for the Northwest Arkansas site. The company now expects to hire about three times that many here, citing the quality of the applicants the new location drew.
"As part of our contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, we were responsible for identifying high-caliber, skilled employee markets in a very short amount of time," said Geoff Basye, a spokesperson with Serco.
"When Serco first visited the Rogers community, it became clear that they had the infrastructure in place along with a strong employment base that allowed us to exceed those requirements. We are grateful to be part of the Rogers community."
Rogers faced stiff competition for the prospect.
"The national economy had been in decline, putting enormous pressure on every region to bring something -- anything -- that brings jobs to the community," said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas.
"In those conditions and against that kind of competition, we were able to attract a major new employer here. This is good. It's good not to be complacent and it's good to win. Now we know we're going to be competitive in these situations."
Serco's move was the largest announcement of a new company coming in, but not the only one.
Redman & Associates, which makes battery-powered ride-on toys, announced plans to move a manufacturing operation to Rogers. The company is expected to hire 74 people in the next three years.
South Coast Baking Co., a California-based frozen cookie dough company, announced plans to renovate a plant in Springdale and hire 150 people, also within three years.
And the 21c Museum hotel in Bentonville hired 125 for its opening in February.
"We've been fortunate over the years to not feel like we needed to recruit outside industry," Deck said. While home-grown businesses have been very successful, keeping up the pace of growth in Northwest Arkansas will require drawing new business too, she said.
"If you're going to keep up with adding 10,000 new jobs a year, it helps to have some chunks," she said.
Articles about Serco's decision to open in Rogers made the Washington Post and New York Times newspapers, said Steve Cox, vice president of economic development for the Rogers/Lowell Chamber of Commerce.
"We've already had one person, working on site selection for a company, directly tell us he didn't know we were a viable option until he read about Serco coming here," Cox said. He was not at liberty to disclose who that was, Cox said. "We didn't get the project, but we wouldn't have even been in the running without those articles."
"This is a great place to live and work. That's why we're fourth in job growth in the nation," Cox said, citing a recent finding by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. "The more people who know us, the better," he said.
Serco's corporate headquarters is in Great Britain, but the parent company bought an up-and-running government contractor, SI International, in 2005. That North American division is based in Reston, Va. Attempts to get comment for this story from Serco headquarters in Reston were unsuccessful.
Serco will process applications for insurance at insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, matching those applications with the appropriate program.
The chamber and local leaders will not forget about local companies or stop emphasizing growth of companies already here, Cox said. Recruiting Serco and Redman & Associates represents an addition to the region's economic development, not a shift away from home-grown jobs, he said.
"One of the worst things that could happen to us would be for a local company to up and leave," he said.
NW News on 03/23/2014