Integreon CEO sees potential in Fargo

FARGO – Bob Gogel jokes that he and Hector International Airport are good friends.
Gogel is the CEO of Integreon, a provider of outsourced document, business, legal and research support services with delivery centers in 12 cities worldwide, including Fargo. Gogel lives in Paris, is based in Integreon’s London office, and comes to Fargo about every six weeks.
Gogel’s most recent trip here had a ceremonial purpose. Integreon held a ribbon-cutting Tuesday for its new 34,000-square-foot facility at 3247 47th St. S. The live-streamed event featured food representing Integreon’s locations.
Afterward, Gogel sat down with The Forum to talk about the company’s growth and global reach.
Q: In short, what is Integreon?
A: We are in the business to help clients be more efficient and effective in what they do. They outsource to us their non-core activities so they can focus on their core activities. And we do it faster, we do it better, we do it with a smile, and we do it cheaper.
What’s happening with Integreon in Fargo?
We started here in 2001 with five employees, and now we’re 340. We’ve got capacity in the (new) building to handle on a 24-hour basis up to 900 employees. This year, we’re going to hire about 150 in the market. … We’ve looked at other places that we could locate, but we’ve decided that given the passion and quality of the local talent team here, this is a great place to be and we’re going to be here for a long time.
Workforce is a challenge in the state. How do you address that?
Not everybody wants to be in the energy sector. It’s a little bit like the gold rush. It’s not the lifestyle for everybody. In the Fargo-Moorhead area, there’s lots of college students who are looking for part time. There’s lots of mothers and fathers who want to work part time. We’ve got a business that allows people a lot of flexibility. At the moment we’re not having a problem whatsoever in attracting talent. We think actually this new building will increase the ease of recruiting.
What are the opportunities and challenges for Fargo-Moorhead to operate globally?
I think that on a global basis, Fargo holds its own. We’ve got similar kinds of delivery centers spread over four continents. And there’s absolutely nothing we have found about the challenges of doing business. We send people from Fargo around the world. We bring people from around the world here into Fargo. I think what this shows is if you’ve got the will to run a global business, and that’s what we are, you can do it from anywhere.
You referenced the possibility of building another new facility here.
We’re talking about it. We’re almost out of space. We’ve got space to go three times in this building, to 900 people. But this was such a great experience, it’s given me lots of ideas of how we can expand in the next five years here in Fargo.