Bill Gosling Outsourcing and its 900 employees will be making the short flight to Barrie from Newmarket.
Mayor Jeff Lehman announced the company will be relocating its head office and production centre to two floors at 90 Collier St., the Lakeview Corporate Centre located in the city’s downtown, at Wednesday morning’s Barrie Business Progress Breakfast at Liberty North.
Kenny Johnston, the firm’s president, explained what Gosling does.
“It’s business support services, outsourcing services, so we work on behalf of major banks, financial institutions, technology companies and we support their services that they don’t want to do, or can’t do,” he said. “We do it on their behalf. We’re really behind-the-scenes kind of work.”
Johnston, who attended the breakfast, said the relocation should be complete by June of next year.
“As quickly as possible,” he said of switching locations. “By then we should be ready to rock ’n’ roll.”
Johnston said Gosling has employees throughout the Greater Toronto Area, with 900 coming in and out its offices, which can hold 300 at any one time.
Johnston said Gosling has been around since 1955, although by another name.
“The name Bill Gosling is a fictitious character,” he said. “We rebranded about seven years ago. We wanted to change it up, make it fun, you know.”
Lehman said that for the past several years, he and Invest Barrie staff have been meeting with Dave Rae, Gosling’s chief executive officer.
“We have been talking about them moving to Barrie, relocating to our community,” Lehman said. “I’m really excited about this one.”
“We got serious about a year and a half ago,” said Rae, speaking to Wednesday’s breakfast by remote connection.
Paul Maxwell, Gosling’s manager of learning and development, has already visited Barrie’s downtown.
“It’s a small, vibrant, amazing community,” he said remotely. “I can’t wait to go back.”
“It’s full of life and full of surprises,” said Melissa Hurley, Gosling’s vice-president of learning and people development.
Gosling bills itself as experts in not only outsourcing, but accounts receivable management and customer service.
For more information, visit billgosling.com.
