CL&P Helps Bring Opportunities to Windsor
On April 15, 2009, following two years of major construction, the town of Windsor welcomed the opening of Walgreens' newest distribution center.
Currently serving 275 Walgreens stores in New England and New York, the 700,000 square foot facility has already brought 250 new jobs to Windsor. That number may grow to as many as 800 in coming years.
The newly redesigned distribution facility is the second of its kind – following the model of Walgreens' Anderson, South Carolina distribution center – and is specially designed to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
"Windsor is a very inclusive kind of community," said Town of Windsor Economic Development Director Jim Burke, "so Walgreens' disability initiative struck a chord with the community." Of course, so did the idea of bringing hundreds of jobs and diversifying the area's economic base. A site consultant began screening potential Northeast locations for Walgreens in 2005. Windsor was identified as the ideal Connecticut site, with enough available acreage to house the huge facility, good highway access and central New England location, but the town still had to compete against other locations in New England and New York. Burke brought CL&P into the site screening process early on.
"Whenever we hear of a business potentially looking to locate in our area, we get CL&P's Business Development Manager, Tom Marano, involved," said Burke. "Power is always a major aspect of a company's needs and costs, and Tom can provide information about the ability to bring in the necessary service, and CL&P's energy conservation and metering programs. And getting CL&P involved right away helps show prospects that we have our act together."
The new Walgreens distribution center "all began with our Senior Vice President of Supply Chain and Logistics, Randy Lewis, who has a child with autism and wondered what kinds of employment opportunities would exist for him," said Deb Russell, manager of outreach and employee services for Walgreens. "Our goal is to have people with disabilities make up a third of our workforce, so we have reengineered the distribution centers to help ensure those opportunities are available."
For example, the facility has workstations designed to accommodate employees in wheelchairs, and while all Walgreens distribution centers use automated processes, the newer facilities change the way employees interface with the computer systems that run them.
"We now have very user-friendly, touch-screen systems that lead employees through each step," said Russell. "It's really helped employees to be more independent, and it cuts down on training time."
Once Walgreens selected the Windsor site for its new distribution center, CL&P System Projects Manager Jim Dieterle began the work of bringing the necessary power service to the area.
"The building is highly automated, and the level of service required more capacity and reliability than the existing facilities could support," said Dieterle, "so we brought in an additional circuit, automated switch gear and multiple transformers to provide the area with enough industrial capacity to support the Walgreens facility, and then some."
"Beyond the important employment and economic benefits Walgreens brings to the town of Windsor," said CL&P's Tom Marano, "we hope our investment in the region's infrastructure will help attract more new business and industry looking to locate in the Northeast."