Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 24, 1994 TAG: 9405240067
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The new center's employment is expected to offset anticipated job losses from previously announced changes in the commercial lending unit of Roanoke-based First Union National Bank of Virginia.
The loan documentation center in Roanoke County will be one of two serving First Union's entire system of seven states and the District of Columbia. The other is in Jacksonville, Fla.
Because it will handle loan documents systemwide, First Union/Virginia President Ben Jenkins said, the new center will grow as the overall bank grows. Other systemwide functions that First Union moved to Roanoke since its March 1993 acquisition of Dominion Bankshares Corp. have expanded faster than anticipated, he said.
The 55 new jobs should more than offset those that are lost locally through the company's re-engineering of its commercial loan division, Jenkins said. The bank announced in late April that it is studying major changes in the commercial loan function throughout the First Union system.
An undetermined number of people will lose their jobs in that reorganization, Jenkins said, but displaced personnel will have the first opportunity to apply for any other vacant job in the bank, including the 55 jobs expected in the new loan documentation center. Pay scales for the new jobs have not been determined, Jenkins said.
Some people may move to Roanoke to take jobs at the loan documentation center, Jenkins said, but most of the hiring will be done locally.
The study of the commercial loan function will not be completed until late in the year. Jenkins said the new center should open in Roanoke in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of 1995.
by CNB