he small town of Gordon, Ga., in Wilkinson County is now home for cutting-edge Internet service, thus opening up its prospects for doing business with the entire world without jeopardizing its individuality as a rural community. Formed in 1997, ISP Alliance is a private-labeled provider of Internet services. It chose Gordon because of the town's welcoming attitude and local leaders' determination to bring future-oriented employment to the county.

The company was formed through an asset purchase by Anthony Tan, who moved from the Midwest to the South in the mid-nineties.

"We can set anyone up in business very quickly," says Tan. "We provide a turn-key technical solution for companies and individuals who want to have a presence on the Internet," he explains.

Although ISP Alliance serves all sizes of customers — from entrepreneurs to municipalities and utility companies to large corporations — its focus is on companies that already have a clientele. For instance, a town might provide Internet access for its residents in addition to the more traditional utilities, such as gas and water. Other clients include cable companies, banks, rural EMCS, and anyone interested in Internet capabilities and e-commerce. Services range from solving connection problems and helping a customer install new software to designing web sites and servicing large corporations.

Tan explains that his company is growing very fast: "To survive and prosper, one always has to 'think outside the box.' In this case the 'box' became Atlanta. People thought it would be suicidal for us to move our operations outside the metro area, but we've experienced quite the opposite. We went to a rural county and found a labor base that was willing to learn and wanted our kind of company. Their skills can be put to use in the worldwide market without having to leave Wilkinson County."

Tan started his operation in Gordon with about twenty-five people. Within a matter of months, he had employed sixty and moved to a permanent facility of 20,000 square feet. The facility will employ about five hundred people once it is in full operation. Tan is drawing on the populations of Sandersville, Macon, Dublin, and surrounding areas for staffing.

"None of this would have happened without Quick Start. In fact, we would not be where we are today without them. We have relied heavily on their training and are in our third phase of association. Their flexibility and the speed with which they worked made our workforce viable," says Tan.

Each new technical support representative receives sixty hours of training from Quick Start: twenty hours in customer contact skills and forty hours in job-specific technical problem resolutions.

Other organizations that have been vital to Tan's company's growth were the Department of Community Affairs, the Department of Labor, the Department of Industry, Trade & Tourism and Heart of Georgia Technical Institute (HGTI). In addition to trying to improve ISPA's efforts at hiring employees who are a good "fit" for this work, he is committed to promoting all of his managers and supervisors from within the company.

"This is why Quick Start's contribution is so vital to us. They have assisted us in training the right people the right way. We hope to end up with workers that are well trained and will stay with us for the long term," adds Tan.