Muskogee welcomes new jobs to town

Hundreds of jobs are coming to Muskogee. City leaders announced Thursday one company is expanding and a new one is opening. <br/><br/>They hope the new industry will close the gap left behind by recent

Thursday, July 15th 2004, 10:42 am

By: News On 6

Hundreds of jobs are coming to Muskogee. City leaders announced Thursday one company is expanding and a new one is opening.

They hope the new industry will close the gap left behind by recent manufacturing losses. News on 6 anchor Terry Hood says Muskogee has lost more than 840 jobs over the last two years.

The manufacturing hits seemed to keep coming, with one plant after another shutting down. Muskogee leaders hope that trend is now turning around. They welcomed 200 more jobs and a new company to town Thursday.

Summit Call Center opened for business in April and its rapidly growing. The company employs more than 100 people now and could hire another 200 in the next year or so. The workers handle orders for Dominos pizza stores located all over the country.

The facility will soon have another call center tenant, the Cherokee Nation. Cherokee ConneX is the Cherokee's latest economic venture and they want to open a customer service call center.

Many hope the call center industry will help lift them out of a serious job drought. Ron Gates, Summit Technology Park co-owner: "Jobs plain and simple jobs there's really nothing that creates jobs faster in my mind than call centers."

Cherokee ConneX leaders are pursuing half a dozen government contracts that could add several hundred more jobs.