O.C. company adds office, 300 jobs in Florida

Ansafone Contact Centers LLC in Santa Ana will open an office with 300 full-time jobs in Ocala, Fla., starting in October.

http://www.ansafone.com/

Owner Randy Harmat made clear in a phone interview that he's not moving his company, which provides telephone customer service for other companies, and is not leaving California.

"We're at capacity in Santa Ana," he said. "We have customers across the country, and we play the time zone changes to our advantage. When our East Coast customers open at 6 a.m., it's 3 a.m. in Santa Ana...We need an East Coast office."

Ansafone is not a telemarketing firm but a phone answering service for large retailers, financial services and health care companies, Harmat stressed.

Ocala, northwest of Orlando in the center of the state, lost 1,200 jobs in one day when Taylor Bean we're partnering with the county and city," he said. "California is my home...but Ocala made me feel important. Three hundred jobs to a community that lost so many are important."

Other than being located in an enterprise zone, which has some tax breaks, Ansafone has not received any cash or incentives from Santa Ana or California, he said.

Ansafone was founded on Main Street near the Bowers Museum in 1970, said Harmat, whose father bought the company in 1990. Randy Harmat bought it in 1999.

"It had 25 employees when I bought it," he said. Ansafone now has approximately 180 employees (200 during the during the Christmas season) at an 18,000-square-foot building at Main Street and MacArthur Boulevard.

The company used to have a Kansas City office but closed it, he said.

Contact the writer: 714-796-792 or jnorman@ocregister.com

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48395717/ns/local_news-orange_county_ca/

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