Grand Rapids-based
Service Express, Inc. plans to add some 25 knowledge jobs by the end of next year – 10 of them in Grand Rapids. In preparation for the growth, the company signed a lease agreement last month for a 25,000-square-foot warehouse/office space at 3854 Broadmoor.
The leased property doubles the company's square footage, which includes the 25,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at 4845 Corporate Exchange. The company's website says it offers customized service solutions for on-site hardware maintenance, focusing on IBM, HP, Sun and Dell mid to high end servers.
President Ron Alvesteffer says the 15 out-of-state jobs will come from the launch of four new markets: Pittsburgh, Penn.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Springfield, Il. and St. Louis, Mo. Memphis is a possible fifth.
The 10 new West Michigan positions will be for technical and internal operations jobs.
"We're running out of office space, conference room space, training space and we needed to create that," Alvesteffer says. "Instead of building on to the headquarters that we own, the lease rates are good right now and we can set ourselves up for future growth. We're just coming off a record month right now and we're planning 15 percent growth for 2010."
To some, that number might seem farfetched given the current economy, but Alvesteffer says Service Express will be up 12 percent at the end of 2009. Furthermore, he says the company has averaged 20 percent growth every year since 1997.
"It's not just about growth," he says. "We take great care of our employees and, in turn, they take great care of our customer and it creates this great momentum. That's the magic. We have a 98 percent customer retention rate."
Alvesteffer says the company has been one of the 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For six years running and received the 2009 Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility.
Source: Ron Alvesteffer, Service Express, Inc.;
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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