Call center InfoCision hosts hiring open house

The company wants to fill 120 positions at its new location.

STAFF REPORT

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — The call center company InfoCision celebrated a grand opening Tuesday at the renovated Troutman building downtown, and it plans to hire more people.

The company has relocated its 260 New Castle employees from the Cascade Galleria on Jefferson Street to the old department store building at the corner of East Washington Street and Croton Avenue. Now there’s room for 120 more workers for jobs that, depending on experience, pay up to $12.25 an hour, said Steve Brubaker, senior vice president of corporate affairs for InfoCision.

The company will have an employment open house from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday. Interviews will be available that day for those who are interested.

InfoCision, which is based in Akron, Ohio, was founded in 1982. It has 4,000 employees and 33 call centers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including centers in Youngstown, Boardman and Austintown.

InfoCision call centers solicit funds for political, nonprofit and religious groups, said Matt Feltrup, public relations specialist for the company. But in New Castle, the center will take inbound calls for commercial clients, he said.

The company is offering full-time positions and training, said Brubaker,

“We’ve tried to make the environment better for employees,” he said, “with a wonderful health care plan.” The company is self-insured.

He said the company also has emphasized fitness and wellness, with a fitness center for workers and their families and an on-site physician who is available for physicals, shots and even urgent care after hours.

He said the innovations have been well-received by employees.

“Health care costs have come down — it’s working,” he said.

Brubaker also said the company is proud to be a part of New Castle’s riverfront renovation, which includes the Riverplex and improvements to Riverwalk Park, Zambelli Plaza, Troutman’s Bridge and the Grant Street Park.

The Troutman Building had been vacant since the store closed in the mid-1980s. It was built in 1911 and had been a dry goods company. It’s now on the National Register of Historic Places.

The building renovation cost $4.2 million, part of which came from state grants.

InfoCision has a seven-year lease in the building for the third, second and part of the first floors. Pier Building Complex of New Castle owns the building, Brubaker said.