Technology services company also will expand Detroit site
By STEVE TARTER of the Journal Star
PEORIA - Ohio's loss is Peoria's gain - and Detroit's. Advanced Technology Services, 8201 N. University St., is moving resources from a Medina, Ohio, branch and will expand operations at locations in the Detroit suburb of Livonia as well as its national headquarters in Peoria.
ATS, an industrial and computer technology services company, employs more than 1,000 people nationwide. The firm's complement of 350 employees in Peoria is expected to increase in 2003, said Jeff Owens, ATS vice president.
"The move (from Ohio) is very positive for Peoria. We're bringing a couple of different product lines here," he said.
ATS is adding factory maintenance work to the high-tech service it presently provides from the Peoria office, he said.
The company's decision to expand offices near Detroit - where the ATS office will go from 18 employees to 132 - was made in order to get closer to key customers, Owens said.
"Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler are very big customers of ours. We need to be more local for them," he said.
ATS tends to the automakers' automation and computer systems, which are at the heart of the car production business, he said.
Formed in 1985 as a spin-off operation of Caterpillar Inc., ATS continues to serve Caterpillar locally and around the country.
"We followed Caterpillar into the southeast. Now a lot of manufacturing has moved down there," Owens said.
The ATS office in Greenville, S.C., has grown to service major manufacturers that have located in the south, he said. "Michelin is located in Greenville, but other companies (served) in the area include Honeywell, Honda and Nissan," he said.
ATS looks to fill about 130 positions nationally, most of them for highly skilled technicians, he said.
"Many of the jobs will be filled here in Peoria as well as across the country. The majority are to provide service to our customers and are technical in nature. There are also sales and customer service jobs," Owens said.