Granite’s growth fuels 2014 hiring

ETCHED IN STONE: Granite Telecom-munications Branch Manager Paul  Goodwin, left, with Major Accounts  Manager Norman Bailey. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
ETCHED IN STONE: Granite Telecom-munications Branch Manager Paul Goodwin, left, with Major Accounts Manager Norman Bailey. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

The sustained growth of Granite Telecommunications since its launch in 2002 – about 20 percent per year with strategies designed to keep up that pace – has caused the company to put out a message from its new Lincoln facility that Rhode Island business leaders and residents like to hear – “We’re hiring.”
The Quincy, Mass.-based company relocated its Rhode Island staff of eight that were previously in Smithfield to the larger facility in Lincoln in December.
The company is in an aggressive hiring mode, with 150 jobs open across its locations in Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida and Rhode Island.
Granite has already hired three new employees in Lincoln and has interviews scheduled during January, with plans to more than quadruple the current 11 employees.
“The growth of the company demands that we bring on additional qualified sales representatives,” explained Granite Telecommunications Rhode Island Branch Manager Paul Goodwin, who has been with the company since its founding and in Rhode Island since the office opened at the same time. “In terms of the products we’re selling, the core products, and the future products we’ll be selling … we really need to get a strong team of about 50 salespeople here in Rhode Island.”
Granite Telecommunications’ core business is buying phone lines from companies like Verizon and AT&T and managing and maintaining business phone networks. A substantial portion of the company’s client list consists of multilocation companies, particularly retailers, such as Wal-Mart, J.C. Penny, Bob Evans restaurants, Outback Steakhouse, Goodyear Tires, Bridgestone Tires and Yankee Candles. There’s another major customer – the U.S. Postal Service. “We have about 16,000 customers in the U.S. and Canada,” said Granite Telecommunications General Counsel Mike Galvin. About 1,000 of those are in Rhode Island.”
While some employers complain about the lack of qualified workers in the Ocean State, the workforce is one reason Granite decided to expand in the state.
“Rhode Island is strong in terms of qualified salespeople who are very aware of the telecommunications industry, where it is now and where it’s going,” said Goodwin.
The company expects to have those employees within the year.
“For the full-time sales positions that we’re looking to fill in Rhode Island, we generally require a four-year college degree, with limited exceptions for military personnel,” said Galvin.
The company has its foundation in telephone land lines, but continues to add products and services.
“We buy from all the major telephone operating companies. We handle about 1.3 million phone lines throughout the country,” said Goodwin.
“The major telephone companies right now really are not interested in handling plain, old telephone services,” he said. “They want to put in high-speed Internet access. They want to give you your cable. They want to bundle everything up and bring it into your house.”
Granite is filling that market niche.
“The second reason I think we’re growing is that we’re expanding into other products beyond hard-wire line services, like data,” said Galvin.
Voice over Internet Protocol and MPLS, or multiprotocol label switching, for high-performance telecommunications networks are products adding to Granite’s steady growth, said Galvin.
The company also is expanding its alarm and security system, called Granite Guard. •

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