Prudential to hire 300 people for El Paso technology and call center, company announced Tuesday

April 30--Prudential Financial Inc. plans to train and hire 300 people in the next three years, including about 150 military veterans, for a technology and call center in East El Paso, company officials announced Tuesday.

"We're excited to be here, and excited about the prospects," Prudential Chief Executive Officer and Chairman John Strangfeld said at a news conference at City Hall, where he stood with Mayor Oscar Leeser, Texas Secretary of State Nandita Berry, City Council members and other community leaders.

Prudential is a giant financial services and insurance company with more than $35 billion in sales last year.

It selected El Paso over several other cities to locate the center, only the second such center in Prudential's global operations, because of Fort Bliss and the quality of the labor force here, Strangfeld said after the news conference.

Fort Bliss is one of the largest Army posts in the nation with more than 30,000 soldiers.

The company also will get $1.15 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund, which is administered by the Texas governor's office, and local incentives for placing the center here, the governor's office reported. City officials have not yet disclosed details about the local incentives, which still must be approved by City Council.

Prudential's goal is to hire about 150 military veterans for the El Paso center, and a large number of spouses of Fort Bliss soldiers, Strangfeld said.

The El Paso center is part of Prudential's years-old initiative to help military veterans get jobs, he said.

"Fourteen years ago, we did a similar center in Ireland, and we had 200 people. Today, we are over 1,000 employees" in the Ireland center, Strangfeld said.

The Ireland center is not tied to hiring military veterans, Prudential officials said. The El Paso center also may grow larger in future years, Strangfeld said.

The El Paso jobs will pay an average of $35,000 per year.

Strangfeld came to El Paso with his wife and about 20 other Prudential executives and other staff members from its corporate headquarters in Newark, N.J. Staff from its Ireland center came to El Paso to begin setting up the El Paso center.

Leeser presented Strangfeld with the key to the city, and Strangfeld presented Leeser with a crystal Rock of Gibraltar, which is Prudential's well-known corporate symbol. The Prudential executives and community leaders ate lunch at the upscale Anson 11 restaurant Downtown after the news conference.

The El Paso center will help create and test computer programs for employee-used systems and handle technology-tied calls from Prudential employees around the country, said Barbara Koster, Prudential chief information officer. About half the jobs will be technology jobs and the other half will be call center jobs, she said.

Prudential is looking for people with a knack for technology, but only a high school diploma will be required, Koster said.

Prudential will put people through six-month to 18-month training programs, which will be operated with the help of the University of Texas at El Paso and El Paso Community College, Koster said. Trainees will be paid a stipend until they complete the training program, she said.

Prudential has already hired six El Pasoans who will begin training at an HGS USA call center in East El Paso, a Prudential official said. Prudential has contracted with HGS, which manages back-office and call center operations for companies, to help operate its El Paso facility. The Prudential center will be located in an existing building at 8465 Gran Vista, near Lee Treviño Drive and Interstate 10.

Leeser, in a statement released after the news conference, said comparing the Prudential center to a call center is misleading because people who work there will be "highly skilled technology representatives who will work with Prudential employees around the world."

Rolando Pablos, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, a regional economic development organization based in El Paso, said Borderplex and city officials had been talking to Prudential officials for about 14 months to convince them to put the facility here. El Paso and a city in Florida were finalists for the center, he said. Prudential's Strangfeld would only say that the company had looked at "a number of places" before choosing El Paso.

Pablos said landing the Prudential facility will help El Paso build a "financial services cluster." The large Automatic Data Processing, or ADP, center on the West Side is an anchor for that cluster, he said. ADP's center provides accounting and back-office services for businesses, along with call center functions.

Borderplex is working with two other financial services companies on putting facilities here, Pablos said.

Army Col. Brant Dayley, Fort Bliss garrison commander, said the Prudential center will provide badly needed jobs for Fort Bliss soldiers who leave the Army, as well as their spouses.

Several thousand soldiers end their Army service at Fort Bliss each year and having more job opportunities will keep more of them in El Paso, Dayley said.

Prudential's commitment to hiring veterans is a big step for El Paso and could help attract other large companies seeking to build a relationship with the Army, he said.

David Zubia, 30, an El Pasoan who left the Air Force two years ago, and Javier Fierro, 19, an El Pasoan in the Army Reserve, were recently selected by Prudential to begin training for the El Paso center. They had been working at the HGS call center in El Paso. The Prudential jobs will provide a good career path, they both said.

Military veterans can apply for the Prudential jobs at wforce.org and click on the veterans tab; others can submit their résumés at prudential.com/careers, or hgscareers.com, Prudential officials said.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421.

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