Date: 02/09/2010

Is San Antonio turning into Omaha South?

When people think of Omaha, the insurance industry usually comes to mind. San Antonio doesn't have an identifying industry as such, and that's good. A diverse industry base has served this city well for a long time.

The city already might have assumed a kind of an Omaha South mantle in a quiet, slow way because of USAA's vast growth over the past three or four decades. Another large home-grown insurance company is Southwest Business Corp.

What first turned heads was October's announcement by Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. that it would open its third operations center, in addition to the ones it has in Columbus and Des Moines, Iowa. Nationwide is in the process of adding 838 jobs by 2012 to the 932 that already exist in San Antonio.

Now comes Allstate Corp., based in Northbrook, Ill., a Chicago suburb, with Tuesday's announcement that it, too, will open a third operations center, after the ones it has in Northbrook and Charlotte, N.C. Allstate will open in May and hire 600 people by June 2011.

The two Fortune 500 companies chose San Antonio for their own reasons, but some of those reasons are similar. Both companies wanted to spread operations to the Southwest, a gesture both to the region's growth and to the rising power of Hispanic consumers.

San Antonio prevailed over Little Rock, Ark., Tulsa, Okla., and Raleigh, N.C., in Nationwide's site-selection process, even though Raleigh offered more incentives. In the Allstate site selection, San Antonio won over two sites in Phoenix and one in Albuquerque, N.M.

Besides incentives, what swayed the two companies toward San Antonio?

The answer might surprise. When both companies needed proof San Antonio had the quantity and quality of workers, they talked to USAA. That company assured them that they would receive all the applicants they needed at the salary levels they planned to offer, said Mario Hernandez, San Antonio Economic Development Foundation president.

How did USAA know that? According to Fortune magazine's recent article on the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” USAA had 182,389 applications on file as of Jan. 13.

Other factors helped. Alamo Colleges is expanding its property-and-casualty licensing programs to help train incoming insurance employees. Allstate insurance representatives must be licensed for all 50 states, and Allstate will train and pay the licensing fees.

Allstate will not require applicants to have college degrees. High school diplomas are enough, Hernandez added. Once trained and licensed, workers will possess that skill no matter what career they decide to pursue later.

Nationwide will invest more dollars, hire more workers and pay better than Allstate currently plans. Part of the reason is that Nationwide also will handle investments at its San Antonio operation. Nationwide therefore obtained a better local and state incentives package.

San Antonio has all the pieces for more insurance and financial industry investments: the workers, the training and plenty of real estate.

The city doesn't have to be Omaha South. San Antonio has a healthy industry mix with a growing financial-insurance sector any city would be glad to have.

dhendricks@express-news.net