Hamilton Relay, a division of Hamilton Telecommunications based in Aurora, Nebraska, announced that it is opening a new captioning center in Columbus, Georgia.  The new center which will be located at 1501 13^th Street in Columbus will begin training customer service call center operators in January with operations expected to begin in February, 2018.  

Hamilton plans to immediately hire between 50-100 new employees for a variety of positions, including: administrative support, human resources representative, recruiter, IT technician, supervisors, trainers, and customer service call center operators. Once fully operational, the center is expected to employ approximately 150 employees.  The hours of operation will initially be from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm, seven days a week. Once the center is fully staffed, hours of operation will be 8:00 am to 1:00 am. Full-time and part-time positions are available.

“Over the past couple of years, we have seen growth in the demand for captioning service, and we are eager to start providing this service from our new center in Columbus,” said Dixie Ziegler, vice president of Hamilton Relay. “The support we have received from the community of Columbus, including the Economic Development team, has been instrumental in helping us establish a new center and was key to our selection of the community of Columbus. We look forward to working with the city, its residents and our new employees.” 

Captioned Telephone Service is designed specifically for individuals who have difficulty hearing on the telephone and allows users to listen while reading word-for-word captions of what’s being said to them on the display screen of a CapTel phone – similar to captions on television. Behind the scenes, Hamilton’s specially-trained call center operators repeat everything said by the standard phone user into state-of-the-art voice recognition software. Those words are then converted into text that appears on the CapTel phone. Captions are available in English or Spanish.

“One of our main priorities is to attract new companies to Columbus,” said Russ Carreker, chairman of the Development Authority of Columbus. “Our economic development partners at the Columbus Chamber quickly reacted to Hamilton Relay’s objectives and provided the company with expertise and resources that put them on the right track to achieve success in the community for a long time to come.”

Brian Sillitto, Executive Vice President of Economic Development of the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce also welcomes Hamilton, saying, “With significant populations of military spouses and students, we continue to be well-positioned to target and compete for companies that are engaged in customer service call center operations. We are excited to welcome Hamilton Relay to Columbus and our team is already engaged to assist with the recruiting and training process so that a significant number of people in our community can begin 2018 working for a great employer.”