
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 22, 1993                   TAG: 9305220105
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HERE COME SOME NEW JOBS FOR THE ROANOKE REGION

ROANOKE'S RECESSION BLUES got a little help Friday when a New York company broke ground for its new headquarters and plant here. Make no mistake, though; they aren't coming just for the scenery.

How'd you like it if your boss said he planned to move the company to a place called Roanoke, Va., and you'd have to take a pay cut for making the transfer?

That's what will happen to dozens of Transkrit Corp. employees if they decide to move south from Brewster, N.Y., when the business-form manufacturer sets up shop early next year at Roanoke's Centre for Industry and Technology.

"Everyone coming from New York will receive an adjustment [downwards] in salary and wages," Transkrit President Jack Resnick confirmed Friday. The pay cuts - which he said will vary from employee to employee - will apply to all workers, including senior managers. They will be based "on a number of complicated factors," he said, including the employees' skills and specialized training.

Resnick said the company, a unit of the Toronto-based media conglomerate MacLean-Hunter Ltd., expects to cut costs as much as 17 percent by moving to Roanoke from Brewster, some 25 miles north of New York City.

Transkrit plans to employ 165 when the facility opens early next year. It estimated, in a statement distributed to reporters, that between 90 and 125 current Transkrit workers will transfer to Roanoke, leaving 40 to 75 jobs for valley workers.

Transkrit could "begin moving dirt" on its 15.5-acre site next to the Blue Hills Golf Club "perhaps as early as next week," Resnick said, with full-scale construction on the 110,000-square-foot facility to begin in late June.

In January, Transkrit said it planned to make an $8 million investment in a Roanoke plant that eventually would employ 70 workers. In early March, the company said it would move its corporate headquarters here, bringing another 100 staff jobs.

Transkrit operates seven plants nationwide and maintains 15 regional sales offices. The Roanoke location was chosen over a site in Roanoke County and 25 sites in neighboring states.

by CNB