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Commitment, teamwork helped lure Centene to Great Falls
It might have been the duck. Or the guest list at dinner.
But success in bringing the Centene Corp. and its 250-job processing center to Great Falls probably came down to commitment, people involved in the process say.
By JAMES E. LARCOMBE
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040822/localnews/1095412.html
The courtship began last October and ended with an exchange of vows of sorts at the Great Falls Civic Center this past week.
Centene promised to bring the jobs, a strong benefits package and pay starting at about $10 per hour. Great Falls officials pledged to build Centene a home on a 25-acre site and help it find qualified workers for the center.
There was no "till death do us part," but a 20-year lease seemed reassuring.
Surrounding the deal is plenty of talk of integrity and teamwork.
"There was no flimflam," said Michael Neidorff, the Centene chairman and chief executive officer. "You got the clear feeling from the beginning that they were real."
John Kramer, the president of the Great Falls Development Authority, recalled the mood of his first conversations with Neidorff and Centene officials.
"You could tell instantly that you were dealing with somebody with high standards," he said.
Centene’s name was on a list of prospects the development authority bought from a company called Dean Whitaker. After checking Centene’s growth and possible need for a new facility, the GFDA last October sent the company a letter and fact sheet about the city.
Jerry Chavez, the authority’s marketing director, followed up in a few weeks with a phone call and got Neidorff on the line. General talks about the company’s growth needs unfolded.
Those talks lit a spark, at least for Chavez and Kramer, who talked about Centene’s desirability and assessed the chances of the dalliance becoming something more serious.
"I think it was November or early December when John and I talked and decided we had a good shot at this project," Chavez said. "You get a sense, through experience, of how well you are going to be able to do with a company."
Things heated up in early January, when the Centene CEO brought the company’s real estate folks into the talks.
At Centene’s invitation, a Great Falls contingent including Kramer, Chavez, Mike Rattray, the community development officer, Marty Becker, a Sletten Cos. attorney and David Gibson, the state chief business officer, visited Centene headquarters in St. Louis in late January.
Along with making a formal presentation, the group toured several of Centene’s facilities and talked with employees. The group liked what they saw.
"We thought they would be a good match," Kramer said. "Of course, we had to convince them it would be a good match."
"I think they were looking for a community to partner with them, not just a place for another processing center," said Rattray, noting that during the St. Louis meetings, officials expressed frustration with another community that seemed uninterested in working to help Centene grow.
The Great Falls pitch focused heavily on available land and a large pool of potential workers.
The big step forward came in April, when Neidorff and others from Centene made a quick trip to Great Falls. While stops to local attractions such as the C.M. Russell Museum were on the agenda, talk about training at the MSU-Great Falls College of Technology and a visit with officials at the Great Falls Job Service Workforce Center were all business.
"They really analyzed our labor availability," Kramer said.
Several members of the Great Falls delegation say a Monday dinner at Indigo, an upscale restaurant in downtown Great Falls, provided Neidorff a sense of the broad community involvement in economic development.
The menu included duck, beef tenderloin, fish, crab cakes and wine. Neidorff was seated between Great Falls Mayor Randy Gray and Ian Davidson, chairman of the Great Falls-based Davidson Companies.
"It was a great meal," Gray said at the time. "They commented that it was as good of a meal as they could get anywhere."
But the discussion among the dozen or so folks at the table, including Gibson and Lt. Gov. Karl Ohs, seemed important in wooing the visitors, some recalled.
"Ian’s presence in that conversation with Michael really helped," said Kramer, who said hearing from a successful business owner seemed to hold weight with the visiting executive.
"I was impressed, sitting next to him, with his integrity," Davidson said of Neidorff.
The next day, Davidson invited the Centene leader to tour the Davidson Companies facilities. A fair amount of time was spent in the investment firm’s operations area.
"He went around and talked with some of our people," Davidson said.
The Centene contingent departed via jet at midafternoon, leaving behind a sizable group of local folks hoping they would see a return soon.
"I’d love to have this company doing business here," Gray said that afternoon. "They have the right attitude and philosophy we are looking for."
But what ensued was a nearly four-month period of phone calls, letters, FedEx parcels, negotiations and bidding, all part of what Kramer at one point characterized as an economic development dance.
The period of uncertainty came to an end about 10 days later, when the exchange of a signed agreement was complete. The company, whose stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, needed to keep the Securities and Exchange Commission happy. Early Friday, officials decided that Centene would formally announce the news of the new center early Monday morning.
Neidorff, vacationing with family in California, would stop on the return jet trip to St. Louis for a ceremony in the Great Falls Civic Center.
In a telephone interview the day before the ceremony, the Centene CEO recalled the trip to Great Falls. He had been impressed with the education background of potential workers, the training opportunities, the health care facilities, even the airport, which offered enough air service to make travel between the Midwest and a small community way out in Montana doable.
But Neidorff said what he remembered most about the April visit was the people.
"We were very impressed with the bipartisan, community support," Neidorff said. "It seemed like the community has the same values we do."
The next day, after a half-hour ceremony and dozens of handshakes in the commission chambers in the Civic Center, a question about the key element of the decision arose again.
"At some point, you’ve got to go with your instincts," Neidorff said. "Here, I see a group of people working for the greater good of the community."
In the end, he said, "Everybody’s commitment made a tremendous difference."
Larcombe can be reached by e-mail at [email protected], or by phone at (406) 791-1463 or (800) 438-6600.
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New Falls business expected to get aid
Associated Press
GREAT FALLS – The company preparing to establish a claims center here stands to get about $4.5 million in financial assistance through efforts by city officials and the Great Falls Development Authority.
Centene Corp., which manages Medicare and other health-care programs for a number of states, has announced plans for a Great Falls center eventually employing up to 250 workers.
The Great Falls Development Authority hopes to borrow about $3.5 million from the Montana Board of Investments to construct four buildings that will house the Centene operation. The company has agreed to a 20-year lease, with details still to be worked out. The agreement spells out employment and wage levels.
John Kramer, president of the development authority, said the projected annual payroll, at 250 jobs, is $6 million to $8 million.
The development authority plans to tap a loan program that allows the state investment board to make loans directly to local government units, which in turn make loans to businesses. Funded by coal-tax money, the program offers below-market interest rates tied to the number of jobs created by the business.
The loan to Centene would qualify for the maximum 2.5 percent rate reduction, said Carroll South, the investment board’s executive director. The agreement caps the rate at 4.75 percent.
The investment board is tentatively scheduled to vote on the loan proposal in October, Kramer said.
The development authority would own the buildings and lease them to Centene. Kramer said the plan is to build two buildings initially, at 5,000 and 20,000 square feet. In the third year, two more buildings of similar size would be built.
The city of Great Falls has committed up to $1 million for roads, water and sewer lines and other infrastructure on a 35-acre site, with Centene owning 25 acres and the city 10. The company would be the first occupant in what the city and development authority expect to be a medical technology park.
Land for the Centene operation is being bought from three men, with Centene paying about about $550,000 for the 25 acres. The company will use only five to eight acres but wants extra for possible future expansion, Kramer said.
Copyright © 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
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Centene stands out after look at numbers
JAMES E. LARCOMBE
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040822/localnews/1095307.html
Michael Neidorff, like the chief executive of most U.S. public companies, spends a lot of time focused on numbers.
The Centene officer, in announcing plans to locate a claims processing center in Great Falls last week, spoke about job numbers. The center will employ 40 to 80 people by November and will ramp up to 250 within a couple of years. Local leaders are quietly hoping the Centene will push beyond that level on its to-be-developed campus in southeast Great Falls.
But the day-to-day numbers that occupy many CEOs, and the figures that stock analysts ask most about, involve revenue, profits and shareholder return. When measured by such yardsticks, Centene stands above many of the public companies in its hometown, according to rankings compiled by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The newspaper, based on financial gauges, named Centene the third-highest ranking public company in the St. Louis area in 2003. The company saw revenue grow by 40 percent and profits increase by nearly 30 percent last year. Its return on equity also topped 20 percent.
Centene topped several well-known St. Louis companies in the rankings, including Anheuser-Busch, the beer maker, Energizer, the battery maker, and Smurfit-Stone Container, the company that operates a mill near Missoula.
Paying attention to financial details is time consuming. In fact, Neidorff, who mentioned that Great Falls is the kind of town where he would like to have his family live, admitted he won’t be spending much time in the Electric City anytime soon.
Neidorff said Carol Goldman, a senior VP and chief administrative officer, will be the face of Centene here in coming months.
"I will come back during the trout fishing season or maybe during the (C.M. Russell) art auction," the Centene boss said.
A giving occasion
Speaking of Russell art, the Great Falls Development Authority presented Neidorff and other Centene officials with a print of "The Jerkline," a Russell painting of horses and wagons rising from the Missouri River bottom.
The gift was intended to symbolize the teamwork involved in the claims center project, said Owen Robinson, the GFDA board chairman.
Neidorff kicked off the gift exchange at last week’s Civic Center ceremony with a large, pyramid-shaped piece of Steuben crystal called "The Summit."
"The summit is something you strive to reach and you never do," the Centene CEO told local folks.
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