Old Wal-Mart building is home to 250 new jobs

Various state and federal dignitaries ranging from Gov. Ernie Fletcher to U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers and Emilio Gonzalez, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, were on hand Monday afternoon for the opening of Datatrac’s newest facility in Williamsburg.
“The addition of more than 250 jobs in any town is great, but in our small city of around 5,000 residents, it is priceless,” said Williamsburg Mayor Roddy Harrison. “The economic impact of these jobs will be substantial, and vital as our town grows and prospers.
“The foot traffic adding to our growing mall can only help the merchants that are already here.”
Founded in 1987, Datatrac, which creates and stores digital copies of government files, is a leading provider of information technology services and solutions to federal government organizations.
The company recently completed a 60-day renovation of the 57,000 square-foot former Wal-Mart building in Cumberland Regional Mall to accommodate its newest operation, which involves a state-of-the-art digital conversion and archiving operation. Wal-Mart moved out of the mall in 1999.
“I can’t believe Wal-Mart can look this good,” joked Rogers, who noted there were 1,250 applicants for the 250 jobs at Datatrac.
“Datatrac is a great company. It is a leading national provider of services to the federal government, so it is no surprise to me that the Department of Homeland Security has chosen this company to undertake this enormous task to correctly and securely digitize 77 million documents in very sensitive data,” Rogers said.
He added that the information is being digitized in a way so that immigration and law enforcement officials can quickly find the information they need on a person or a group.
With 250 employees, Datatrac instantly became one of the largest businesses in Williamsburg since Firestone opened in 1989.
By comparison, Firestone employees more than 400 workers, Williamsburg Plastics has about 350 employees, SEKRI has more than 200 workers, and CDR employees about 235 people, according to the latest figures compiled by the city.
Datatrac’s work is the result of a contract with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Office of Records Services.
As part of its multi-year contract with the Department of Homeland Security, Datatrac, along with its subcontractor Anacomp, Inc., will assist U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ with its efforts to create, standardize, and implement digitization processes and technologies, providing the foundation for electronic capture and management of critical agency data.
The estimated value of the program is $150 million over the next five years.
Gonzalez noted that the immigration service is a record based agency built on a mountain of 100 million paper files along with six million new files a year.
“This facility represents the future of our national immigration system, and the beginning of an ambitious agenda to transform the way we do business, to transform our processes, and to modernize our business practices,” Gonzalez said.
“It also positions the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the forefront of national security through the formation of a permanent electronic record for every applicant that we receive, an e-file that is to store and can be transmitted any where, any time.”
Currently, Datatrac has other facilities in Corbin and Barbourville.
“We are very excited about their facility here, and the nearly 800 employees they have here in Kentucky,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher noted that one thing Datatrac CEO Kathi Yeager mentioned to him was that he was extremely proud of is the work ethic of the Kentucky workers.
“She said, ‘The workers here are the finest workers any where,’ and that is the reason these facilities are among the finest facilities they have,” Fletcher said. “They have a tremendous loyalty, a great work ethic, and the capability and capacity to do the work that is needed here.”