Eel Ground gauges interest for potential call centre
Published Wednesday December 3rd, 2008
EEL GROUND - If you're living anywhere between Eel Ground and Sillikers and would be interested in working for an inbound call centre, Eel Ground's Business Development Corporation would like to hear from you.
The BDC is trying to gauge the interest along that stretch of the Miramichi in the hopes of attracting a call centre company to Eel Ground First Nation.
"What we're trying to do is employ this part of Miramichi, from Eel Ground onward up to Sillikers," said Marlene Trevors, an economic development officer at the BDC.
Trevors said she had sent out a newsletter asking for people interested in working at a potential call centre to contact her, and will be sending another out soon. An advertisement was placed in Saturday's Publicity Plus as well.
"Right now we're having quite a bit of interest," she said. "That's all they want to see, that there is interested people to help us get it started."
The president of the BDC, Don Saunders, said the potential project would be based at Eel Ground. He said the minimum number of people that would have to be interested for such a project to work would be around 150, with the call centre, if it is built, employing "at least" 50 to 75 people.
"Part of this, of course, because it would be located on a First Nation, those people who are eligible can work with no tax, meaning Aboriginals," he said.
The organization's role was as a facilitator, he said, and it would be charged with putting up the building that would house the potential venture, although if a deal with a company goes through, construction would only begin in the spring.
Saunders said the housing structure would be built partly through the BDC's own assets and partly through other development agencies, such as Aboriginal Business Canada.
"The market's there," he said. "We're just looking at operating on the west side of Miramichi City and in an area where it would be very convenient to people in the rural communities who may not want to travel into the city."
He said the Eel Ground Band Council was behind the idea.
"We're just working at it. We're trying to make things happen," he said, adding the BDC had conversations with call centre company Virtual-Agent Systems, although the results of their study into interest in the area could be pitched to any call centre company.
Virtual-Agent Systems' Neri Basque, the company's vice president of IT and strategic development, confirmed a company employee had been in communication with the Eel Ground BDC.
He said the company, which operates 19 call centres around the province, including facilities in Neguac and Rogersville, currently had been in a "stable" situation, and would be looking at new communities to establish in when it started to grow again.
He said he had a list of potential communities where the company be set up, including Blackville, although Eel Ground was not on it yet.
Basque said that did not mean they were uninterested in looking at new proposals.
"We're quite receptive to any one of these, and we would be more than happy to look at what do they have for facilities and what would they have for population, and how would they make it work," he said.
Basque added the company would be interested in a community where they would be able to reach 40 to 50 people as full time employees, meaning there would have to be around 300 resumes on the table, as well as an appropriate building.
Parties who would be interested in employment at a potential call centre can contact Marlene Trevors at 627-2736, or marlenetrevors@gmail.com.
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