T-Mobile USA to open Chattanooga call center

Hamilton County officials say the planned 80,000-square-foot facility would become the largest employer in the county when it is fully staffed.

“The company is growing very dramatically,” said John Birrer, T-Mobile’s vice president of customer service operations. “We’ve got to grow our U.S. facilities.”

It is the biggest project for the county since 1997, when AT&T announced would create 1,000 new jobs with a new call center. That center currently employs about 190 workers.

T-Mobile’s center would start with about 120 to 150 workers, and would work its way up to 800 in about a year, Birrer said.

The Bellevue, Wash.-based company is the fourth largest wireless phone operator in the United States with about 18.2 million subscribers. Cingular leads with more than 50 million customers after its merger last year with AT&T Wireless.

County officials called the company’s decision affirmation of efforts to attract businesses to the region, such as the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce’s $9 million “Tell the World” recruiting campaign started two years ago.

County Mayor Claude Ramsey said company officials liked the high-visibility site, the area’s work force and the business environment.

The company, which is a subsidiary of Europe’s largest phone company, Deutsche Telekom AG, is receiving a state and local incentive package, said Trevor Hamilton, the chamber’s vice president for economic development.