Even in the hard-luck hollows of Appalachian coal-mining country, where adversity and unemployment hang as constants, the dashed hopes of Clintwood stand out.
The town has been "in transition," as people here put it, for half a century, as one set of jobs after another vanishes.
Coal-mining work dwindled with automation. Textiles decamped for Latin America. A shell building designed to attract manufacturers never could be rented. Dickenson County lured Nexus Communications, only to have it go bankrupt three years later in the dot-com implosion.
A new day seemed at hand in 2001 when online vacation company Travelocity signed a six-year lease to operate a call center in the abandoned Nexus building. It brought tech-age jobs and endeared itself by co-sponsoring the Fourth of July celebration.
Now Travelocity is pulling up stakes, too.
275 jobs, $8 an hour
Last month, the Fort Worth-based company announced that it would close its Clintwood call center by the end of this year. In the future, it will route more calls through India. About 275 employees will lose jobs paying $8 an hour and higher, plus benefits, pushing double-digit unemployment up a few more notches.
The plight of this small town in a corner of Virginia so far southwest that it appears on maps as an insert is just one example of rising anxiety over trade and jobs that is resonating across the country in an election year.
Many people in Clintwood were outraged when N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, suggested that offshore outsourcing ultimately is beneficial to the economy. Keith Viers, the county administrator, said he heard lots of unprintable rejoinders, all of them essentially meaning "absurd."
"It sure isn't going to help Dickinson County's economy," said Charles Hay, chairman of the county's Industrial Development Authority. "We're very disappointed that they're leaving, that they're taking the jobs offshore."
Local officials say they predicted that the North American Free Trade Agreement would hurt them. Many have come to believe their future lies in homegrown industries disinclined to leave for cheaper wages in another country.
Year after year, a grim distinction
"We've become experienced in the difficulties of having large, impersonal corporations own our resources and make decisions about our economy, and we're tired of it," said John Stanley, head of the Chamber of Commerce. "Everyone's determined we're not going to let this slow down a real effort at recovery. But making the transition is a real challenge."
Few places in Virginia need a recovery more than Clintwood and surrounding Dickenson County. Year after year, it has the highest unemployment rate in the state.
Dickenson has been losing population steadily since its peak of 23,000 in 1950. The 2000 census showed another 7 percent drop to 17,600 people.
"It's not easy to stay here," said Paula Davis, editor of the Dickenson Star and one of the few members of Clintwood High School's class of 1990 living in town. "We've gone from our fathers being able to find jobs in the mines for good money to wondering what we do now."
About 1,500 people live in Clintwood, the county seat. It has two stoplights and a pole outside the courthouse bearing 19 flags, one for each local person serving overseas in the military. Mayor Donald Baker says he can count on one hand the number of new homes built over the past 10 years; the typical housing unit, he says, is the double-wide mobile home.
Getting Travelocity, then the leader in its market, was a coup. The county took on a $250,000 loan to reconfigure the second floor of the building it owned and gave the company a rental discount.
Hopes raised, then dashed
"Travelocity seemed to be a signal that things were changing," said Michael J. Schewel, state secretary of Commerce and Trade, who visited Clintwood after Travelocity sent a senior vice president from Texas to break the bad news to employees. "It said to the town: 'You're a participant in this technological change.' Then suddenly it goes away. Not merely does it close, but it goes overseas. It's a very tough situation."
Travelocity, which lost $55 million last year, says economics dictated its choice. Routing the calls through India will save $10 million in the first year alone, company spokesman Al Comeaux said.
Employees who want to relocate may be offered jobs at the company's call centers in Pennsylvania and Texas. "It's not necessarily going to bolster the economy in Clintwood, but it offers them an opportunity," Comeaux said.
He called the Clintwood workers "teammates" and said Travelocity is trying to ease the effects of its departure. It has given workers 11 months to make plans, rather than the 60 days required by law. And it will pay severance and medical benefits for three months, at a cost of $250,000.
"We're leaving the community, but we don't want to just walk out," he said.
Officials are scrambling to find a replacement, prompting wry jokes that it is pointless to sign a lease longer than three years. Rep. Rick Boucher (D) already has detoured two potential employers looking for call center sites in his district to show them Clintwood.
But some Travelocity employees fear they might be shut out.
"Who's to say they'd hire everyone who works here?" asked Maria Salyers, 34, a mother of three who quit a job managing a pet store in June to join Travelocity as a customer service representative.
'It's a good work force'
Steve Horne, general manager of the facility, had just offered jobs to some people and started training others. Those commitments will be honored, he said, as long as the call center is open.
Horne is a Clintwood native who had been working for Bank of America in California when he joined Travelocity, specifically for the chance to move home. Now he is determined to show other potential employers how conscientious Travelocity's employees are.
"I want to be here to sell the people, and sell the place," he said. "It's a good work force that does a quality job and they've maintained that quality. We're a tight community."
With unemployment higher than 11 percent, workers who want to stay in the area have few alternatives. Barry Belcher already is considering moving.
"There's other jobs. Not many, but there are some," said Belcher, 25, who worked at construction in another county before Travelocity hired him. "The rest of my family's here, and I'd like to stay close. I've thought about moving maybe 50 miles, toward Blacksburg. I've heard there are more job opportunities there."
No hard feelings
People in Clintwood bear little animosity toward Travelocity. It was a good employer and a good citizen, they say.
"There's no reason to be upset, except that they're leaving us," said Charlotte Mullins, economic development director for the county. "We're not bitter at India, either. They have people they want to get jobs for, too. I understand it. I'd like for them to be here."
Some say there is no reason to believe Travelocity portends the departure of more calling center jobs, like mining jobs of an earlier era. Others say there is little that can be done about it anyway.
"In my experience, in today's marketplace there are no guarantees," said Charles Yates, head of the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority. "It's distressing to communities and horrifying to employees. But the day when you could work for a good employer and remain there your entire career is gone. The sad part is there is a lot of suffering by people losing jobs, and economic hemorrhaging by Clintwood and Dickenson County."
Yates blames NAFTA for the loss of 3,000 manufacturing jobs. Filling in the holes is a heartbreaking task.
"I've never worked harder to stay in the same place in my life," he said. "It's like running all week and not getting out the front door."
Signs of hope
Still, there are signs of hope -- next to Travelocity, where the county is finishing construction of a child care center, and on Main Street, where an old Victorian mansion is being turned into a museum for bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley.
Gerald Gray, a community activist, has held a taste-testing reception in his renovated law office for Appalachian Legacy, a brand of jams and dried foods based on traditional recipes. Gray said he believes retirees who left for the Midwest in the 1950s can be enticed to come home. He envisions a local sawmill making furniture from regional hardwoods and tourist resorts catering to horseback riders, campers and fishermen.
"It makes sense to recruit another call center, but we can't predict how long it will stay," he said. "So while we want to get it filled quickly, we also need to look for more long-term business. We need to look at ourselves and see what's there."
People in Clintwood say they do not want to be pitied or seen as quitters. They describe their town, and themselves, as resilient.
"We'll survive," Yates said. "There will be another employer in Clintwood. We'll continue to do this, till we get it right."
