Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal Article - News, Business, Homes, Politics, Automotive, Reviews, Bremerton, Silverdale, Poulsbo, Gig Harbor, Port Orchard, Bainbridge

An artist’s conception of what the Nextel call center currently under construction at the intersection of McWilliams Rd. and Highway 303 in East Bremerton will look like. The center will employ about 500 local people when it opens this summer.

   Nextel Communication Inc. officials said the good vibes it felt from the Kitsap Regional Economic Development Council (KREDC) and the support it received from the Kitsap business community in general made its decision to locate its new 500-job call center in Kitsap County a slam dunk.
   That was just one of the highlights of the KREDC’s annual meeting held at the Silverdale Hotel on March 21.
   Besides a presentation from what will become one of Kitsap’s largest private sector employers later this year when it opens a 500 person call center in Bremerton, the “Companies To Watch” awards, an annual presentation sponsored by the Business Journal, were presented to five local firms, and developer Ron Sciepko received a special honor from the group.
   Also introduced at the meeting was Cuba Craig, CEO of American Financial Solutions, a Seattle-based non-profit credit counseling agency which announced it will open a call center in downtown Bremerton that will eventually ramp up to provide about 100 new jobs.

An artist rendering of Northwest Corporate Campus. Developer Ron Sciepko has spent nine years developing the South Kitsap project. It will take another 20 years to build out.

   But Reston, Virginia-based Nextel, which announced in January it plans to construct a new 60,000-square-foot building on a seven-acre site at the corner of McWilliams Road and State Highway 303, was clearly the star of the show. The facility is scheduled to be completed June 1 and open for business on July 1. The KREDC was instrumental in helping recruit Nextel to the Kitsap Peninsula.
   Doug Byrkit, Nextel’s Director of Sales for the Pacific Northwest Area, was a keynote presenter at the meeting which was attended by more than 150 people.
   “We look at a lot of things (when deciding on a potential location), not the least of which is a supportive business community,” Byrkit said. “Looking around this room, we see a lot of support and feel good about our decision to come here.”
   Nextel, a Fortune 500 company traded on Nasdaq exchange, selected Kitsap County for its new customer support center after identifying and reviewing more than 100 potential sites. Nextel has existing call centers in Atlanta, GA., Rutherford, N.J., Denver, Hampton, VA., and Temple, Texas.
   Byrkit said Kitsap County’s quality labor force, the region’s quality of life and the supportive business community were behind its decision to select the Bremerton-area for its new call center.
   Moreover, Byrkit praised the KREDC and its board and staff for its efforts in working with Nextel on proving labor, finding a suitable site to construct its building, and working with local business people and government officials on a variety of issues, ranging from property acquisition to training and education.
   The KREDC will work in concert with Nextel to develop a community relations plan that will allow the company to participate in the greater Bremerton/Kitsap County business, civic and social services communities.
   “We realize that being a good corporate citizen means being a good citizen in the community at large,” Byrkit said.
    Nextel, which has 7 million wireless phone customers nationwide and 16,000 employees, will begin hiring for its Bremerton/Kitsap County facility the May/June period, depending on the completion of its building. Potential employees will be required to complete a six-week product training class after passing a basic skills test.
   The call center will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, with limited hours n Saturdays. It will be closed Sundays.
   In addition to Nextel’s presentation, the KREDC’s annual meeting included the election of board members, a presentation on Kitsap’s industrial land inventory by Executive Director Zoltan Zsigethy, plus a “Case Study” by Ron Sciepko, developer of Northwest Corporate Campus in Bremerton — one of the region’s newest business parks. It’s taken Sciepko nine years to assemble the land for his 188-acre industrial site near McCormick Woods. Over that period, he has had to overcome a number of obstacles, including several lawsuits, in pursuit of his project.
   Sciepko was honored by the KREDC with its annual Community Economic Development Support award. The award recognizes those whose contributions have furthered the cause of sensible development in Kitsap County.
   As in past years, the KREDC, in conjunction with the Kitsap Business Journal, honored several “Companies to Watch,” local firms whose business plans and practices have increased primary job employment in Kitsap County.
   The award-winners were selected by the KREDC and Kitsap Business Journal and were based on seven criteria: a company’s place in an industry sector with promise for future growth and expansion; business practices which lead to employment growth; sale of products and services outside of Kitsap County; employment that contributes to family-wage jobs; business practices that contribute to sustaining a clean and desirable environment; an effort in place to use local suppliers and support local economic growth; and community involvement.

This year’s winners included:
• Airbiquity Inc., a Bainbridge Island market leader in the development of location-based products for wireless applications, with 80 employees;
• Romark Corp., a Bremerton-based manufacturer of wood component parts for customers ranging from California Closet, a national company, to small cabinet shops, with 19 employees;
• Safe Boats International LLC, a Bremerton-based manufacturer of watercraft for the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, law enforcement agencies and other industries, with 41 employees;
• Square Rigger, a Silverdale-based developer of fleet maintenance software, with 10 local employees, three out-of-town employees and a sister company in Baltimore with 17 employees;
• Twiss Analytical Laboratories Inc., a Poulsbo-based company with 7 employees, and the only privately owned lab that does inorganic and bacteriological water sample testing for a range of different businesses and entities, and;
• Watson Furniture Systems, a Bainbridge Island manufacturer of office furniture for the contract office, 911 emergency dispatches and inbound call center markets, with 125 employees. It is relocating this July to a new 68,000-square-foot manufacturing complex at the Twelve Trees Business Park, north of Poulsbo.