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A burgeoning company in Fayetteville, Arkansas is looking 90 miles to the west to expand its work force, which could someday mean as many as 800 jobs for Tulsa.
The 7-year old company, Athletic World Advertising, makes sports calendar posters for high school and college athletic departments around the nation.
It started hiring people in Tulsa earlier this year after struggling to find quality workers in the tight labor market of Northwest Arkansas, said Gregg Ogden, company president.
“It’s refreshing for us to see such an eager work force,” Ogden said Monday. “We’ve been really pleased with the quality of applicants we have had.”
Athletic World Advertising is one of the most recent companies to join the Oklahoma Quality Jobs Program, which awards incentives to qualified businesses that locate expand in Oklahoma.
Ann Dee Lee, spokeswoman for the state-sponsored program, said Athletic World Advertising projected on its application to the program that it would create 800 jobs in Oklahoma.
“That’s the best scenario,” Lee said. ”Of course, it’s not a promise.”
Ogden estimated that in three years Athletic World Advertising will have 600 employees in Tulsa.
In March, the company hired about 60 people locally and now plans on expanding to a second floor in CityPlex Towers, 2448 E. 81st Street. Ultimately, the company could occupy six floors of the 60-level tower.
“As long as business continues to grow, we’ll have a definite need for more workers,” he said.
Employees in Tulsa are primarily advertising account representatives who work in a call center environment. They are paid hourly wages starting at $9, with monthly bonuses up to $500, said Mark McQueen, a spokesman for the company.
Design and production of the sports calendar posters are handled in Fayetteville. Altogether, the company employs about 350 people, Ogden said.
Through its contract with the Okalahoma Quality Jobs Program, Athletic World Advertising has three years to ramp up business to a point where it is paying $2.5 million to its Oklahoma employees annually. On a quarterly basis, the company reports its payroll to the Oklahoma Tax Commission, which them pays the company 3.98 percent of that payroll.
“They have to hire the workers first,” Lee said, “It’s not like giving them a handout.”
Ogden said he is confident that the company can meet annual qualifications outlined in the program.
“There were a lot of reasons to come to Tulsa – the Quality Jobs Program was one of them,” he said.
Another factor that pushed Athletic World Advertising to expand to Tulsa was the quantity of “ready, skilled” workers, he said. In the first round of hiring for 40 positions, 300 applied.
This illustrates the aftermath of widespread layoffs in Tulsa during the last year and half. The city has lost 16,400 jobs during the 12 months that ended in March, giving Tulsa one of the highest percentage declines in employment in that nation during that period, according to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission.
Athletic World Advertising has about 4,500 accounts in all 50 states and is quickly expanding into the college athletic market, Ogden said.
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