NCR adding jobs in Duluth

NCR will expand its Georgia operations by more than 900 employees in the next 26 months, many of them coming to work at the company's Duluth location. Gov. Sonny Perdue and NCR's Chris Wallace announced the expansion, which will include a $15 million capital investment as it creates its Center of Excellence in Georgia.

Wallace said the Duluth facility will expand its engineering group, and its existing customer services group. Some of those employees will come from NCR's Dayton-area facility, but "a lot of the emphasis is on growth and expansion," she said.

"The very fact is they touch all of our lives, whether you go to an ATM to take out money, or you go to Delta's electronic ticketing kiosk or you check out your own groceries, or Home Depot checking out – most likely you are using an innovation that was created, developed and brought to market by NCR," Perdue said.

The Fortune 500 company is based in Dayton, Ohio, and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Its stock closed at $17.68 on the stock market Tuesday, up 1.28, an increase of 7.8 percent, though this is much lower than its 52-week high of $29.39.

The center will co-locate in the two communities, with the 360,000-square-foot facility in Peachtree City extensively remodeled with a $15 million capital investment to create a world-class service support environment and training facility, said Wallace, NCR's senior vice president. Customer service staff will be trained at the center, those who go out in the field, work the company call center and other operations.

"Peachtree City and the greater Atlanta area will become the worldwide customer services headquarters. So we will end up having a very large part of our operation located in both Duluth as well as Peachtree City," Wallace said.

Duluth and Gwinnett lawmakers and chamber of commerce officials applauded the expansion, announced under the Capitol Dome in Atlanta this afternoon.

Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charles Bannister said "this is just the kind of result that we, the current commission board, when we were designing and we launched our economic development program in Gwinnett County, pointing the focus on increasing jobs and higher wages."

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is another great day," Bannister said. "Economic development means more jobs, higher wages, more dollars in circuation and increased tax base."

NCR has had a long history with the state of Georgia, Wallace said.

"The first NCR employee who worked in the state of Georgia was in 1884," she said. When we sent people here to sell cash registers back in the day when we were known as a cash register company."

In the 1970s, the company located in Peachtree City. In the 1980s, it built its Duluth facility, initially centered on manufacturing capabilities. It now houses much of its product management, engineering, marketing and sales resources as well, she said.

"What we are announcing today, as the Governor mentioned, is an NCR Center of Excellence, and that plays a huge role in NCR's future growth," she said.

"We are at the leading edge of innovation in the self service expansion in the world," Wallace said.

The company intends to grow and develop whether through ATMs, kiosks or self checkouts. Its strategy is to be the world leader in "connect, interact and transact with consumers."
- www.gwinnettherald.com

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