Nov 18 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Rory Sweeney The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.


When an electricity retailer opens for business in Forty Fort by the end of the year, its employees might be placing the only telemarketing calls people want to receive.

Gateway Energy Services, based in Rockland County, N.Y., announced on Tuesday that it will hire up to 90 people to staff a call center that will market electricity supply options to residential customers in UGI and PPL territories, both of which will be free of rate caps as of Jan. 1.

Taking up a suite at the Cross Valley West Professional Building at 190 Welles St., Gateway plans to hire by Christmas at least 20 people for telemarketing and door-to-door sales, according to Steven J. Maslak, the company's president and chief executive officer. An employee-recruitment open house is being held today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for telemarketers and administrators. By the end of 2010, the call center hopes to be fully staffed.

Gateway markets a variety of rate options and other services to residential and small to medium-sized commercial customers in Ontario, Canada, the District of Columbia and seven deregulated states, including New York, Ohio, Maryland, Texas and New Jersey.

"The real sweet spot for us in the residential market," Maslak said. "There typically is not the level of loyalty with a large account than with a small account. ... The level of service that we provide to customers after the fact (of switching), we take a lot of pride in that."

He said the company will be hiring employees and beginning publicity efforts starting in December, but that it won't offer electricity until likely February. "We like to blanket an area with our name so there is a name recognition," Maslak said, noting that a provider switch usually takes about a month.

He said the company contracts for power on such a short term that it wouldn't have reliable price quotes until mid-December, but that its services and prices will be competitive. "We typically do not buy long-term contracts for power. That's not our style," Maslak said. "Look at the way I have treated customers in other territories and you will see how we have a history of beating the utility's price structure."

Gateway can offer a variety of options, he said, from fixed prices to variable rates, energy generated by alternative sources to time-of-use programs. There are even affinity programs in which groups pool their demand together, reducing their combined costs and also usually creating some income for the group of which they're members, such as a church.

PPL estimates its rate to residential customers will rise about 30 percent starting Jan. 1. UGI has operated free of caps since 2003, when rates increased more than 30 percent.

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