Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994 TAG: 9404260128
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The center to open in July will be housed in a 30,000-square-foot building formerly occupied by R. Frazier Inc., in the Intervale Industrial Park.
The company will hire workers for data entry, customer service and material handling. Another 40 jobs will be available during peak retail seasons.
Red Rose said it would pay wages that average $6 to $8.50 an hour and would begin hiring in mid-June.
The employees will be hired locally. Only one employee will relocate from the San Francisco suburb to Salem. He is Daniel Knight, distribution center manager for the mail catalog company.
"I fell in love with the Roanoke Valley right at the beginning of the process, and I've been pulling for it all along," Knight said of the company's two-year study that led to the selection of Salem as the site for the distribution center.
That analysis looked at markets and distribution costs. "Red Rose can realize significant operational savings from the Roanoke Valley because of a central location and excellent transportation network," according to Rinaldo S. Brutoco, the company's president.
Knight said the Salem center represents an expansion for the company.
The catalog center in Burlingame, which employes 150 people, will continue to take all Red Rose orders from throughout the United States, he said. These orders will be relayed to Salem. The corporate headquarters and the data processing operation also will remain in the San Francisco area.
The Salem center will distribute all of the orders nationwide, including shipment back to California, Knight said. Customer service people in Virginia also will handle merchandise returns.
Red Rose Collection plans to open a showroom and catalog outlet store in the new Salem facility. It also has a retail store in San Francisco.
Knight said he did not know the circulation of the company catalog, but he said the list is growing rapidly.
Established in 1987, Red Rose Collection was named in both 1992 and 1993 by Inc. magazine as one of America's 500 fastest-growing private companies.
Knight said Red Rose Collection's catalog features clothing, home furnishings, gifts and other items.
"Magical gifts to inspire and delight" is the theme of the current catalog, Knight said.
Knight said the clothing and other items in the catalog have what he called "a California look." He said he would not define the catalog as either upscale or mass market.
Anne Piedmont, spokeswoman for the Roanoke Valley Regional Partnership, described the merchandise in the catalog as both upscale and "really interesting stuff. It's very California."
Virgil Thompson, a spokesman for the Virginia Employment Commission in Roanoke, said quite a few companies in Roanoke are involved in distribution of merchandise from catalog sales. At the same time, he said, many people are looking for jobs in data entry, customer service and material handling.
Red Rose Collection should have no problem finding that kind of worker in the Roanoke Valley, Thompson said.
The wage scale also is competitive in the industry locally, he said. Most companies usually study the market for particular work, then plan to be competitive. The salaries, he said, are "in the ball park" for filling the jobs.
by CNB