Area Development
Professional Transportation, Inc., a crew transportation services provider, plans to expand its Evansville, Indiana operations center, creating up to 100 new jobs by 2015.

The Evansville-headquartered company, which recently acquired Coach America's crew transportation division, will invest $5.45 million to lease, equip and expand 10,000 additional square feet at its current facility, located at 3700 Morgan Ave. in Evansville. As part of the project, the company will add rail crew transportation services to BNSF Railway, Canadian Pacific Railroad, Utah Railway, Portland and Western Railroad, as well as additional services to existing customers, Union Pacific and Amtrak.

PTI, which already employs nearly 337 Hoosiers, provides over-the-road and yard van services to companies in the railroad industry and is also a provider of ground transportation services. With this expansion, the firm plans to hire financial and voucher analysts, dispatchers, operations coordinators and human resources administrators.

"PTI gave careful consideration when evaluating where to expand its transportation services with the Coach acquisition," said Steve McClellan, vice president of PTI. "Based on the resources of qualified workers, exceptional local universities as well as Indiana's recent right-to-work legislation, Indiana was naturally selected as the expansion area of choice."

"When companies increase their footprints in Indiana, despite global economic challenges, it means we are doing the right things to attract business investment," said Governor Mitch Daniels. "PTI's additional commitment is not only positive news for southwest Indiana but reaffirms that our hard work to make Indiana the best state for business continues to pay off."

As an incentive the Indiana Economic Development Corporation provided Professional Transportation with up to $675,000 in conditional tax credits and up to $85,000 in training grants based on the company's job creation plans. These tax credits are performance-based, meaning until Hoosiers are hired, the company is not eligible to claim incentives. In addition, the city of Evansville will provide additional property tax abatement at the request of Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville.