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Dakotah Solidifies Spokane Presence Telemarketer Wants To Hire 75 More People Here

Grayden Jones Staff writer

For a company rumored to be leaving Spokane, Dakotah Direct Inc. is hiring a lot of permanent workers.

Lori Kory, director of human resources for the telemarketing, polling and airline reservation firm, said she’s hoping to add another 75 people this week to the downtown company’s 500-person payroll.

Dakotah Direct will hold the final day of a job fair today at company headquarters on the sixth floor of the Bon Marche building.

“We’ve invested too much in terms of equipment and building ourselves up to this size to disband and jump ship,” Kory said. “We plan to always maintain a presence of this size (here).”

That doesn’t mean, however, that Dakotah Direct will be located downtown forever. The company is looking at other sites outside the downtown core that would provide 300 free parking spaces and a subsidized day care center for employees and their children, Kory said.

Rumors that the Spokane-based company would leave the city began circulating after Dakotah Direct President Michael Kuhn said he had received an offer to move out of state. On Wednesday, Kory said that won’t happen.

Bob Cooper, president of the Spokane Area Economic Development Council, concurred. He said he has been told by company executives that Dakotah Direct will remain in Spokane.

Since opening in 1992, Dakotah Direct has struggled to find enough employees to meet its many contracts with AT&T and other companies to sell credit cards, long-distance service and other products by telephone. So, this year, the company opened new telemarketing centers in suburbs of Chicago and Omaha, Neb. It also launched a subsidiary, Dakotah Reservation Services, which operates an airline reservation center near Kansas City, Mo. The parent company employs 1,400 people.

Local jobs start at $5.50 an hour, with up to a $1.25-per-hour bonus for employees who have perfect attendance, Kory said.

Dakotah Direct is heading into its busiest winter season ever, Kory said. It needs additional telemarketers to conduct surveys for media companies and sell services for several banks and telecommunications firms.

, DataTimes