Verizon unit in Cary adding 200 The division
designs and monitors data networks worldwide
Five months after taking over rival MCI Communications,
Verizon is hiring 200 people in Cary who will be
dedicated to one of the company's largest accounts:
a multinational bank based in Holland.
For the Verizon Business unit, which designs and
monitors complex data networks for businesses and
governments, the new hires could revive the momentum
the company lost in recent years when it operated
as a unit of MCI, formerly known as WorldCom. The
telecommunications company has been reeling from
a financial scandal that resulted last spring in
the conviction in federal court of disgraced chief
executive Bernard J. Ebbers.
Verizon Business already has filled a third of
the new positions, mostly with engineers paid between
$50,000 and $150,000 a year and assigned to connect
ABN Amro bank's 6,000 sites worldwide. Formed in
1989 with a single customer, Chrysler, the New Jersey-based
division added a second customer, Nasdaq, two years
later. It operates networks for 3,500 customers,
including the U.S. Postal Service and the Federal
Aviation Administration.
"A lot of these networks are mission-critical,"
said site executive Kevin Gahan. "Our customers
want to talk to very high levels if there's an issue."
The WorldCom flameout was the most trying period
in the Cary network operation center's 12-year history,
said Gahan, Verizon Business' vice president of
global network and solutions management. Gahan recalls
visiting customer headquarters and fielding nervous
calls to keep major accounts from bolting and the
company from collapsing while the courts oversaw
bankruptcy protection.
The network operations center in Cary is one of
three for Verizon; the other two are in the Washington,
D.C., area. The Cary complex was built in 1994,
with a second building added two years later to
the 55-acre site that now employs about 1,800. It
basically amounts to several floors of computer
banks operating round-the-clock, with technicians
monitoring high-speed networks strung underground
and along sea beds and utility poles.
The ABN Amro contract was signed about a half a
year ago, Gahan said, after a year of bidding and
negotiations. Bank officials picked Verizon Business
because the company agreed to hire some of the bank's
technical staff and could provide its own technical
staff, deployed worldwide, he said.
Verizon Business competes with information technology
giants such as IBM, AT&T, EDS and BT for the
lucrative contracts. The main services provided
are network management, security and hosting. Some
of the customers are classified government agencies.
"You think about British Petroleum,"
Gahan said. "It's a huge global conglomerate
headquartered in the United Kingdom, and all their
networks are managed from Cary, North Carolina."
