Wilkes-Barre, PA -
Berkshire Hathaway GUARD (GUARD), a commercial property and casualty insurance company, will expand its national headquarters in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, and bring 285 new jobs to Northeastern Pennsylvania.
GUARD purchased the Wilkes-Barre Center building on Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre. The 90,378-square-foot office building will consolidate several of its Wilkes-Barre-area offices into one expanded national headquarters.
The company expansion project is expected to create a total of 285 new family-sustaining jobs over a three-year period, bringing GUARD's employment base in the city to 726 by Aug. 31, 2019.
According to Carl Witkowski, chief operating officer, GUARD's staff has doubled over the past five years, increasing from about 300 to more than 675 today, more than 80 percent of which are in Wilkes-Barre.
The project was coordinated by the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business & Industry, the Governor's Action Team, Sen. John Yudichak, and Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski.
Yudichak said the jobs pay above the average wage in the region. He noted that GUARD was considering locations for an expanded headquarters “all over the Eastern United States.”
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“The decision by Berkshire Hathaway GUARD to invest $10 million and firmly plant its corporate flag in downtown Wilkes-Barre signals the beginning of one of the largest and most significant economic development projects in the history of our great city,”
- Senator John Yudichak
Calling GUARD a “stellar corporate citizen,” state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski said keeping the company headquarters here “speaks volumes about the private sector's faith in Wilkes-Barre City and Northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tony George called the work to keep GUARD in the city a “joint effort” between his administration, the Governor's Action Team, the governor's office, Yudichak, Pashinski, the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry and the Diamond City Partnership.
“But it's not only the jobs,” the mayor said.
“It's the people it's going to bring downtown. You'll see more businesses open up. It's like a snowball rolling down a mountain - it keeps getting bigger and bigger. With new jobs, new businesses will open and our tax base will grow,” George said. “Right now, we have a lot of nonprofits that are not paying any taxes. This will counter that.”
Wico Van Genderen, president and CEO of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber, said GUARD's downtown presence will have a “huge” economic impact of $29 million annually.
Larry Newman, executive director of the Diamond City Partnership, said the average downtown office worker spends about $25 per week just on food while at the office. “You can quickly do the math and you'll understand what the impact is of a job creation project like this,” he said.
“That's hundreds of additional people who are coming to downtown restaurants, going to Boscov's, doing their banking downtown, getting haircuts downtown and spending that money right here around Public Square,” Newman said.
“This project is a big win for Wilkes-Barre, both now and in the future. Major employers like GUARD recognizing the advantages and growth potential of Wilkes-Barre means that not only will its current Pennsylvania workers remain employed here for years to come, but that hundreds more will now have family-sustaining jobs that will help the local economy and community. When this administration talks about ‘Jobs That Pay' here in the commonwealth, it is projects like this that serve as a model of those efforts.”
- Governor Tom Wolf
GUARD, which was founded by Kingston residents Judd and Susan Shoval in 1983 and headquartered in the former Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. building on the southeast corner of Market and River streets ever since, was acquired by a unit of billionaire Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway in October 2012.
The company has committed to investing approximately $10 million into the project, which is expected to create 285 new jobs over the next three years. In addition, the 441 positions already based in Wilkes-Barre will be retained, and GUARD plans to collaborate with local high schools to create a registered apprenticeship program with the assistance of the Department of Labor and Industry.
“Our sales and staff have both doubled over the past five years, and we are projecting significant growth in the future,” said Sy Foguel, CEO and president of GUARD.
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“Staying in downtown Wilkes-Barre has always been a high priority for us, so we are pleased to have identified a solution to our infrastructure needs that allows us to keep our main operations in downtown Wilkes-Barre. We had many attractive offers and alternatives from developers outside Pennsylvania that did not involve the added expense of locating a large corporate headquarters in a downtown district. The hard work of Governor Tom Wolf, State Senator John Yudichak, State Representative Eddie Day Pashinski, Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tony George, and many other state and local business leaders helped find a way to make the City of Wilkes-Barre the most attractive alternative.” - Sy Foguel, CEO and president of GUARD.
GUARD received a funding proposal from the Department of Community and Economic Development for $855,000 in Job Creation Tax Credits to be issued following the creation of the new jobs. In addition to the Job Creation Tax Credits, GUARD was issued a $1,000,000 grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority Local Share Account program.
GUARD, which has eight offices across the U.S. in addition to its Pennsylvania headquarters, is a provider of commercial insurance products including workers' compensation and employer's liability, business owner's coverage, commercial automobile, commercial umbrella/excess liability, disability, and professional liability. It also offers a full range of underwriting, loss control, billing, and claims value-added services that help policyholders realize the full benefit of their coverage.
BY STEVE MOCARSKY / PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 2, 2017
Denise Allabaugh, staff writer, contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
smocarsky@citizensvoice.com
570-821-2110; @SteveMocarskyCV
http://citizensvoice.com/news/berkshire-hathaway-guard-insurance-co-buys-new-w-b-building-1.2262950
