Shawn Anthony, general manager at the 1,000-employee EchoStar Communications call center in McKeesport, goes to work every day in the same building that both his grandfathers did.
But this is not his grandfathers' steel mill.
While EchoStar is surrounded by remnants of an industry that once dominated the Mon Valley, all evidence of that industry is gone inside the plant.
Brooks Robinson Jr., vice president of the Regional Industrial Development Corp., said he hopes EchoStar is the beginning of what will replace abandoned steel mills in the Mon Valley.
"It's all about creating good jobs and about renovating old sites so that 20, 30, 40 companies can have a presence in the area," he said.
In 1990, RIDC acquired what Robinson called "miles and miles of interconnected buildings" from U.S. Steel. After selective demolition, environmental remediation and building preparation, the corporation began seeking occupants.
At the same time, EchoStar, a nationwide direct broadcast satellite provider, was looking for a building to house a call center for the eastern United States, he said.
"They narrowed their search down to about 30 sites from Florida to New England. We battled our way to a short list of five and won the battle."
EchoStar opened its McKeesport center in 1998, occupying 105,000 square feet of a 1 million-square-foot building where seamless pipe was made.
"As a youngster, I used to come down here probably three or four times a week to pick up my grandfather, Mike Banosky, who worked on this site for 47 years," Anthony said. "I remember playing where what is now our front entrance. It was actually the entrance to the mill."
He recalled riding the bus to downtown McKeesport with his grandmother, visiting Green's Five and Dime and enjoying a soda at Murphy's before meeting his grandfather for the return trip home.
"When I got the chance to come here for a job, I was taken aback because I remember what it was like in the late 1970s and early 1980s," he said. "In the early 1990s, we would go fishing in the Mon River behind the facility. I remember it was a broken-down building with windows busted out and rubble and garbage strewn all over the ground.
"Six years later, it became a multimillion-dollar facility for one of the fastest-growing satellite companies in America. It's unbelievable."
Anthony said it was "eerie" to see the changes and that sometimes while walking the aisles of the now-plush interior, his mind wanders to earlier days.
"My father, Thomas, also worked for U.S. Steel, not in the mill, but on the riverboats," he said. "He docked right out back and loaded the steel from the mill to take down the river."
Thomas Anthony did not want to emulate his father and grandfather, so he joined the Navy right out of high school. Four years later, he returned home to a job on riverboats, which led him to hauling the finished pipes down the Monongahela River.
He was overwhelmed the first time he visited the new building and noted that "when it was the mill, it was all open and smoky with the ovens going. You could hardly breathe."
Another EchoStar employee, manager Doug Vadas, also has family ties to the former mill. As a boy, his visited the plant with his father, Bill, who worked in the maintenance department.
"And now we're raising our families and doing things here in the same facility as our fathers and grandfathers," Doug Vadas said.
"When there were openings, I would take my sons there and introduce them to the jobs that were available," Bill Vadas said. "I told them they could either plan to work at the mill or go to college."
In the mid-1980s, the steel industry stopped operating in the area, and Vadas retired after 35 years' service. Doug Vadas works in what used to be Bay 13, where the pipes were formed.
Now 75, Bill Vadas recalls the various bays, each handling a different part of the process used to manufacture the steel pipes.
"The pipes were about 50 to 60 feet long and threaded inside and out," he said. "They had to be sized, rounded, threaded, stenciled and sacked for shipping.
"The mill was open 24 hours a day with employees chipping and banging the pipes into size. There was certainly a lot of noise."
Although EchoStar is a far quieter business, the elder Vadas still can see the past when he visits his son at work.
"The first time I went down there, I went out back, saw everything was cleared out, and I thought about all the cranes that once moved out there and all the people I had known," he said. "I knew them by their nicknames and seldom knew their last names.
"Not too many of the old buildings are left. Times sure have changed."
The McKeesport call center, which could accommodate 2,000 employees, became the model for EchoStar facilities now open in Texas, Virginia and New Jersey. EchoStar has headquarters in Colorado and had two customer service centers in Denver before opening the McKeesport facility.
EchoStar recently celebrated 20 years, with its early history in bulky C-band antennas. The company went into the satellite business in 1996 and now has seven satellites.
In 1999, it had 1 million customers. Today, it has more than 7 million and more than 11,000 employees.
While many companies in southwestern Pennsylvania are downsizing, EchoStar hopes to hire 900 more workers by the end of the year.
Jill Harmon, human resources manager, said EchoStar promotes from within. It now is interviewing employees with three months' service for supervisory positions.
For every 12 customer service representatives, the call center has a coach, or frontline supervisor. Fifteen more coaches are soon to be added.
For every eight coaches, a manager is needed; and for every eight managers, a general manager. Adding 900 more employees will move more employees up the ladder.
Employees range in age from 17 — a high school diploma or GED is a must — to a current trainee, 78. About 80 percent live in McKeesport or neighboring communities, Harmon said. Employee turnover is about 30 percent, near the national average, she said.
"Not everyone can do this job," Harmon said. "There are some stressful moments to this job as there are to any customer service position. It does take a certain personality type to do that and do it well."
Since the mills closed, McKeesport and other Mon Valley communities that relied on the steel industry have experienced decreases in population, business and tax bases. City Administrator Patricia Monoyoudis said EchoStar has boosted McKeesport's base with $2,000 to $2,500 in occupation taxes and about $40,000 in real estate taxes.
"It fills part of the gap down there and shows that something is being done to renovate the area. It indicates that McKeesport is finally coming back," she said.
The land and renovated building are assessed at $6.1 million. Since 1999, RIDC has paid more than $80,000 in county taxes on the property.
Chuck Starrett, executive director of the McKeesport Redevelopment Authority, called EchoStar a beautiful facility.
"It's safe, clean and well-lit. People had concerns about coming to an old mill site at night. As far as I'm aware, there have been no problems."
If the site grows, it will be with research and development firms, office complexes and light manufacturing rather than retailers, he said.
"We will not duplicate The Waterfront," Starrett said. "We will see companies that will create permanent full-time positions, companies paying living wages with benefits, quality jobs that will last over a long period of time."
