DALEVILLE, IN At a news conference held Monday, April 30th, Governor Mitch Daniels and company spokesperson Olivette Whipple announced that IBM will be opening a new customer service center in Daleville. IBM plans to invest $3 million and employ 500 people within three Years. The center will be housed in the former Burlington Motor Carriers corporate headquarters building on Commerce Drive (SR-67). The new call center will serve a combination of existing lients and new business development. More than 200 people attended the news conference, including business and governmental leaders from Delaware County, Madison County and East Central Indiana.

Olivette Whipple, Vice President for IBM Global Integrated CRM Delivery, said the Muncie – Delaware County area was selected because it offers an excellent pool of skilled and qualified applicants and Ball State University provides cultural and higher education opportunities. The majority of the positions available will be for call center agents. These positions will help clients assess and obtain services for systems management and business processes ranging from system upgrades of antivirus software to complete transfer of HR or finance functions from a company to IBM.

Governor Daniels said the new facility is one of the economic development projects called for under the agreement between the state and IBM. "A cleaned up welfare system, a billion tax dollars saved over the next decade, and 1,000 new jobs on top. This was already a huge win – seeing hundreds of those jobs sited in a small town is the bonus to a great reform."

"IBM’s decision to locate in Daleville represents a significant step forward for our community," said Stephen Overmeyer, Daleville Town Board President. "Their choice to locate in the former Burlington building brings new life to the area and will create hundreds of new jobs for our citizens."

John Brooke, President of the Delaware County Commissioners said, "This is another great project for Delaware County. This is the second Fortune 500 Company to locate in our county in the last year. Between IBM and Sallie Mae, they will be providing over 1,200 jobs to our residents. Like most economic development projects, Delaware County had to compete for this project and we are extremely pleased to have won this center. As incentives were discussed we were able to negotiate a ten year commitment from the company and a best faith effort to hire at least seventy-five percent of its employees from Delaware County. We are very pleased to have IBM here and excited about the future."

"IBM will provide further diversification of the local economy and its $12 million-plus annual payroll (when fully staffed) will have a very significant effect on the local economy. IBM, Sallie Mae, Muncie Ethanol LLC, and MPT-Muncie are four recent major successes here representing nearly 1,700 new jobs and $200 million in new capital investment," said Robert Curtis, President & CEO, Cardinal Health System and Chairman of the Board for Vision 2011 Muncie-Delaware County Economic Development Alliance (EDA). Curtis added, "These projects, along with Ball Memorial Hospital’s $120 million expansion and hundreds of new jobs, as well as numerous EDA assisted expansions of existing businesses are helping to fuel our local economy."

E. Roy Budd, Executive Director of Energize-ECI, the regional economic development partnership for East Central Indiana commented, "IBM’s decision to invest in our area will gain the attention of other expansion-minded businesses to focus on the many benefits of East Central Indiana – our ideal location, excellent quality of life, low cost of living Midwestern work ethic and the willingness of government entities to work together to encourage new business development and the expansion of current businesses."