Asheville-based company Realserv, which plans to set up a sizable customer-support center for real-estate agents, is moving along with plans to bring hundreds of jobs to the area and last week landed a local celebrity spokesperson. Former basketballer and current ESPN NASCAR announcer Brad Daugherty has become Realserv’s corporate spokesman and strategic-development officer, the company announced last week, and the company’s leaders have ramped up their estimate of the number of employees they plan to hire.
“One of the essential criteria for my involvement with a local enterprise is its ability to bring new, high-paying jobs to Asheville,” Daugherty said in a press release. “The very real possibility of Realserv accomplishing that goal — in the hundreds — is why I’m on board.”
A few months ago, Realserv CEO Shannon Van Etten predicted that Realserv would create some 600 jobs; now, “based on new service agreements and planned company acquisitions,” he says, the company will hire as many as 1,600 people during the next five years.
The company’s next step, Van Etten says, will be to choose a facility to handle early operations. Then, Realserv plans to undertake a search for a 400,000-square-foot permanent campus. Stay tuned to mountainx.com for further developments at this closely watched company, and see Realserv’s Web site at www.realserv.com.
— Jon Elliston, managing editor
