Last year, vacuum cleaner maker Oreck Corp. announced plans to move all manufacturing operations from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to Cookeville, Tenn., citing exorbitant insurance costs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The company, identifiable by the face and voice of grandfatherly founder David Oreck in television commercials, more recently announced its intention to eventually employ around 700 in the state, a substantial increase over initial estimates. Jobs to fill include not just manufacturing positions but also call center positions and even some sales and marketing positions in Nashville. Downtown office space is already leased.

Given Oreck's recent flurry of activity in Tennessee, is it just a matter of time before the New Orleans-based brand considers a full corporate headquarters relocation to Tennessee and joins BusinessTN's annual August list of the 250 largest public and private companies? Oreck board member Jim Amos, a Franklin, Tenn., resident, appeared to put all speculation to rest this past April when he informed BusinessTN in no uncertain terms that the company had already settled on a decision to relocate to the Music City.

"Oreck is going to move their headquarters from New Orleans to Nashville," stated the former CEO of San Diego-based Mailboxes Etc. and the man who designed the sale of that 5,000-unit retail postal business to shipping giant UPS in 2002. "The whole company is going to move here."

Asked when, Amos replied, "I can't tell you that at the moment, and I hope I'm not speaking out of school here as a board member, but I can tell you that the headquarters will be moving to Nashville."

Contacted at his New Orleans offices, Oreck Corp. President and CEO Tom Oreck refuted his board member's claims, though his repeated use of the qualifying statement "at this time" hardly conveyed any sense of categorical denial.

"We are not making that kind of announcement at this time," said Oreck in a May interview first published online at www.businesstn.com. "We have a lot of operations going up there, but that's not an announcement we are making at this time." (Two months later, NashvillePost.com reported that Oreck had purchased the $4.6 million Nashville home once owned by Grand Ole Opry comedienne Minnie Pearl — Sarah Ophelia Cannon — and her husband.)

Experts in the fields of economic development, corporate recruitment and site selection in Tennessee have long predicted that skyrocketing insurance premiums would eventually dampen the allegiance of even the most devoted corporate citizens and business owners of the Gulf Coast, leading eventually to a bevy of relocations. That's particularly salient with regard to companies owned by out-of-state investors, or which are not privately held. Oreck is majority-owned by New York-based private investment company American Securities Capital Partners.

Does it all add up to a future relocation to Middle Tennessee for Oreck? It is hard to be sure as long as statements supplied by company officials remain at odds. For now, Tennesseans can be content in the knowledge that the all-American-made, eight-pound Oreck upright vacuum is exclusively a product of the Volunteer State. But perhaps before long the Oreck brand name will make its splash on the TN250.
Drew Ruble, Editor