DATE: Thursday, October 9, 1997             TAG: 9710090820

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   55 lines

DIRECT-MAIL FIRM OPENS BEACH HEADQUARTERS

MC Direct, a national direct mail company, will cut the ribbon today on its new 20,000-square-foot facility in Oceana East Commerce Park.

Workers are settling into their new manufacturing and office space just west of Oceana Naval Air Station, and production is expected to begin in about a week.

With its growing client base of about 100 nonprofit, banking, computer and health care companies, the building will serve as a regional headquarters for Poway, Calif.-based MC Direct.

The $120 million company has 140 employees nationwide and plans to bring up to 25 jobs to Hampton Roads initially, said Raymond G. Ellis, MC Direct's president and CEO. They will include hourly up to senior management jobs. The region's stable military presence and available labor pool made the area attractive, said Ellis, adding that expansions are expected.

``This is part of our long-term strategic plan,'' Ellis said. ``We opened 10 years ago and have continually grown to include more and more East Coast clients.''

MC Direct does few traditional mass mailings, instead it targets specific households for mailers. Ellis said the state-of-the-art manufacturing system includes high-speed laser, folding, inserting and bindery equipment.

If you've given money recently to the Smithsonian Institution or the American Indian College Fund, then you might already have seen the company's work. The letter seeking a donation probably came from MC Direct.

The company opened an office in Winston-Salem, N.C., two years ago, but that office will be moved to the leased Virginia Beach site. The building in Oceana East, owned by Jerrold L. Miller, was designed and built with several small tenants in mind. But Ellis said he was able to customize it for his business during its construction. About 6,000 square feet of office space was added for offices.

Ellis said he contacted the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance, a regional public-private marketing group, for help finding an office and manufacturing site. He narrowed the search to Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach before settling on the Oceana East building. Ellis, 40, is a Virginia Beach native and admitted that may have swayed his decision a bit.

``That's what we do,'' said Anne Baldwin, director of research for the Alliance. ``We try and understand what the companies' parameters are and then we go to our database. We also call our brokers and cities because available real estate is always changing.''

Work for MC Direct began months ago. The company needed a space that was around 20,000 square feet, available this month and close to a post office branch.

Baldwin said while MC Direct's Virginia Beach operation is small, it's valuable to the region because it likely will expand and offer more jobs and services to the region. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MC Direct will have ribbon-cutting...

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