Ford Credit unveils LV-area call center

Phil Levine

Wednesday, April 12, 2000 | 11:36 a.m.

Bob Donoghue says Henderson is Ford country.

Donoghue, director of global operations and technology for Ford Credit, the finance arm of Ford Motor Co., says the auto giant examined 25 cities nationwide before choosing Henderson as the site of one of its new call centers.

Located at 150 S. Pecos Road at the intersection of Pecos Road and the I-215 Southern Beltway, the 110,000-square-foot center will initially employ 550 people.

Once it's fully operational in early October, the center will serve about 1 million Ford customers throughout the Western United States.

"We examined several criteria, and Henderson was selected as one of eight locations for our new regional service centers because it ranked high in all those categories," he said.

Criteria examined by Ford included local business costs, quality and quantity of the workforce, quality of life and transportation-related issues.

Ford Credit currently has a local branch office at 500 North Rainbow Blvd. employing 34 people; approximately 60 percent of those employees will relocate to the new center in the first quarter of 2001.

The Henderson call center is in an office park being developed by American Nevada Corp., and is a component of a 160-acre mixed-use project between Green Valley Parkway and Pecos Road. The Greenspun family owns both American Nevada and the Las Vegas Sun.

The new Ford Credit location will include a fitness center, child care operation and a cafeteria.

Ford officials declined comment on the cost of the project.

Donoghue said most of the senior positions at the Henderson site will be filled by current Ford Credit employees.

As part of its national restructuring initiative, Ford Credit is relocating loan servicing functions such as collections, accounting and account administration previously housed in the company's 141 North American branches.

In addition to Henderson, service centers housing those functions are to open in Nashville, Colorado Springs, Colo., Dallas, Tampa, Greenville, S.C., and Edmonton, Canada.

Ford Credit used local commercial broker CB Richard Ellis to negotiate its 10-year lease at the Henderson site.

Despite the center's huge personnel requirements, Donoghue is confident low unemployment levels won't present an insurmountable obstacle for the center's success.

"The fact is there are very tight job markets in all the cities we are opening (calling centers) in," he said. "We plan to offer attractive salaries and benefits, and feel confident we will find the quality of people we require."

He declined to outline details about the starting salaries.

Ford Credit is the latest in a series of large national companies establishing customer service centers in the Las Vegas area.

Last month, San Francisco-based financial services giant Providian Financial Corp. opened its first Nevada operation in Henderson at the intersection of Green Valley Parkway and I-215.

Providian will use the 62,000-square-foot building as a customer service center supporting both credit cards and its e-commerce division; the Henderson center employs about 700 people.

Officials from both Providian and Ford say Henderson's Interstate access was a critical factor in deciding where to locate their centers.

Donoghue said the Henderson center will also provide Ford with the capacity to accommodate future growth.

"We will have the ability to expand by as much as 30 percent," he said. "It's possible that we may be able to grow to as many as 700 employees at that center."