New Mexico beats Utah in Sento race

AMERICAN FORK — Last summer, Sento Corp.'s top executive said Utah was in the running with a few other states to land a Spanish-language contact center the company was considering. Patrick O'Neal, the president and chief executive officer, said at the time that "all things being equal or even slightly less than equal, we would do it here."

Well, it turns out things weren't even close to being equal.

The company, which specializes in outsourced customer support services, said Wednesday that Albuquerque will get the new center, perhaps landing as many as 800 jobs over a couple years. The company cited an enthusiastic governor and about $4 million in government incentives offered by New Mexico — neither of which was matched by Utah.

"In the final analysis, it came down to Tucson and Albuquerque," O'Neal said Friday. "Our sentimental favorite was Utah, but it wasn't going to happen."

As for incentives, Sento sought money from the Utah Industrial Assistance Fund but failed because it did not meet program criteria. "It would have been in a metro area of Utah, not a rural area," O'Neal said of a potential new Utah center. "I made the argument to the IAF (committee) that creating jobs for minority groups in an urban area is certainly as deserving as creating jobs in a rural area. They sympathized with me, but that didn't change the outcome."

O'Neal said the company's consideration of offers from other states came during the Utah gubernatorial transition.

"I think what happened is that the election happened and there was the change in administrations. I think it fell through the cracks in the transition. I don't think the current administration really knew about it. That's my guess," he said.

A Sento representative spoke to the Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. administration, "but that kind of never got anywhere," he said.

"I never really talked to the Huntsman administration after the transition. That's more my fault than theirs," O'Neal said. "We had a very preliminary discussion through our representative and was told that there wasn't a budget for this. There was a high level of interest, and certainly it seemed like one of the things the Huntsman administration would like to do, but there was not money in the budget for it. I really didn't push it."

Meanwhile, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson "stepped in and made a difference" in landing the new center in Albuquerque, O'Neal said, beating out other finalists Denver, Tucson and Phoenix.