REGIONALREPORT Charlotte
CHARLOTTE — Connextions, which operates call centers for the health-care industry, wants to hire 1,200 employees, 800 of whom would go to a center the Orlando, Fla.-based company planned to open here in May. The rest will go to an existing call center in Concord, which now employs about 600. The jobs will pay $35,000 to $45,000 a year.
HICKORY — Cincinnati-based Convergys is adding 160 customer-service and sales-support jobs at its call center here, which will increase employment to about 835.
KINGS MOUNTAIN — Medina, Minn.-based Polaris Industries purchased Indian Motorcycle (“Return of the Red Man,” March 2009) and plans to close the factory here, idling about 25. There isn’t a timetable for closing the plant. Indian and sister company Chris-Craft planned to create nearly 800 local jobs before the latter closed its plant in December 2009.
KINGS MOUNTAIN — Chapel Hill-based Strata Solar filed an application with the N.C. Utilities Commission to build a $22 million, 4.5-megawatt solar farm here that would provide power to Duke Energy. It would be the second-largest farm in the state behind a 15.5-megawatt project in Davidson County.
CLEVELAND — Portland, Ore.-based Daimler Trucks North America plans to add 225 jobs by this month at its Freightliner truck plant here, bringing employment to about 1,325.
CHARLOTTE — Sweden-based Electrolux plans to add 200 more jobs to its North American headquarters in Charlotte over four years, bringing the total to 700.
Valinda Rutledge (cover story, March) has resigned as CEO of CaroMont Health, effective July 29. CaroMont is the parent of Gaston Memorial Hospital in Gastonia. Rutledge, 57, is leaving for a job as director of the Patient Care Models Group for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, based in Baltimore. She came to CaroMont in September 2009 after six years as CEO of Bon Secours St. Francis Health System in Greenville, S.C.
