"We expect to open at least two centers during the next 12 months that probably will create a total of 750 jobs when up and running," O'Neal said.

"This is a new initiative. We're looking for business from U.S. companies that are selling their products and services to the Spanish-language community. To our knowledge, there is no one with a real major thrust in this area today. There are in Mexico and Latin America, but we want U.S. citizens and people who are living in the U.S. to deal with U.S. customers who are Spanish-speaking."

Utah is competing with Denver and locations in Arizona and New Mexico for the first of the two centers. O'Neal said Denver "has been very aggressive" and that outside consultants have told him Utah may not be able to come up with enough economic development incentives to land the new facility. He was scheduled to meet with state economic development officials Tuesday afternoon and said the company also will meet with Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City officials.

"Our preference is to have the initial center here, but I guess I'm guardedly optimistic that that can happen," O'Neal said. "It's our preference to do it here, for lots of reasons. One, we'd like to be a good corporate citizen. Two, it's more convenient for our management team to get the facility up and running and to then manage this kind of a template site. . . . We're hoping to find some economic development assistance, and, all things being equal or even slightly less than equal, we would do it here."

During Sento's quarterly earnings conference call, O'Neal said the initial center would be operational by the middle or end of the next quarter. "So the (site) decision is going to have to come fairly quickly, I would hope within the next 30 days," he said Tuesday.

In preparation for the new centers, the company has translated all of its training and quality procedures into Spanish, hired a Spanish-speaking recruiter and hired Spanish-speaking people for its information technology group.

The people hired for the new center will be those with Spanish as their primary language and English as a second language. The company will offer tuition reimbursement and will conduct on-site "English as a second language" classes for employees and their families.

It's been a hectic few months for Sento for a variety of reasons.

"The economy certainly made a turn, and the reason for our growth with Overstock, when you really look at it, is it's directly proportional to Overstock's growth. It just so happens we have partnered with companies that are doing very well and growing, like Overstock, like USDTV and STSN, and that helps a lot," O'Neal said.

"Also, our company is much stronger now financially than it has been in some time, and that's caused our clients and potential clients to have more confidence in the future. It's a good business climate generally."

---

E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com