"Dare to grow" is on a decorative wall of rustic wood planks with planter boxes at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas Abilene location.

Grow the company has.

BCBSTX opened Feb. 3, 1997, as a customer care center at Loop 322 and Industrial Boulevard in part of a building once home to Timex and Texas Instruments. About 200 employees started on the payroll.

Twenty-five years later, 37 of those original employees still are part of the workforce, now about 1,100 strong.

Having companies call Abilene home long term is a goal for the Development Corporation of Abilene, which recruited BCBSTX in 1996.

"The DCOA is here to support local businesses – keep them here and help them grow and prosper," DCOA board chairman Sam Vinson said during a 25th anniversary celebration in May at the BCBSTX Abilene location.

Evolving operations

Speakers at the celebration included BCBSTX corporate executives and Abilene Mayor Anthony Williams. Also present were many of those 37 employees.

The Abilene location handles health insurer claims from reception to finalization, working with both insured members and healthcare providers, said Michael Garcia, senior director of customer service for the Abilene office.

He is an Abilene native who moved from San Antonio two months after the local office opened to be a claims supervisor.

BCBSTX is headquartered in Richardson and has 10,000-plus employees in its customer service division.  Abilene is the second largest location. The company serves more than 6 million members and almost 80,000 physicians and healthcare providers.

When the Abilene office opened, tasks at other centers were reallocated to the new location.

"That allowed those locations that were previously doing that work to assume other responsibilities," Garcia said.

Between Monday and Friday, BCBSTX employees field 36,000 member calls a day. In addition, they daily process 960,000 claims, said Greg Brown, senior vice president and chief customer service officer for Health Care Service Corporation, BCBSTX's parent company.

But, working at BCBSTX was about more than being an employee, said retiree Delores "Dee" Moore during the anniversary ceremony. She called company picnics and employees volunteering together at local nonprofits.

More: Dee Moore closes 47-year career with Blue Cross

"We were a family. That's how this office operated," said Moore, who was part of the BCBSTX management team that opened the Abilene center.

Moore noted thousands of people braved snow and ice to attend the first BCBSTX job fair at a hotel on Ridgemont Drive. There were more than enough qualified applicants to fill positions in the first two waves of hiring.

The Abilene location first supported customers of the health insurer's federal employee program. Roles and functions evolved through the years, including the implementation of telecommuting for some staff members long before COVID-19.

The remote staffing strategy ramped up during the pandemic, with about 400 employees currently telecommuting full-time.

"Even the majority of our staff that aren't full-time telecommuting work a flex schedule, generally one week in the office, two weeks home," Garcia said.

DCOA economic package

The DCOA attracted BCBSTX with an economic incentive package that included $700,000 in grants and a $1-a-year building lease. In return, BCBSTX promised to create 400 jobs and invest $4 million in the building, according to Reporter-News archives.

More: DCOA projects through the years

BCBSTX Abilene today is ranked among the city's top 10 employers.

Abilene also supports BCBSTX in ways that cannot be measured on a balance sheet, said Jim Springfield, who has been president of BCBSTX for one year.

"It's so important in a business to have local support, not just financial support, but support, moral support. And, it's so evident here. The vibe in this center is so positive," Springfield said following the anniversary event.

Vinson noted that the relationship between BCBSTX and the city is valuable because the people employed at the company live, shop and volunteer in the Abilene community.

"Twenty-five years on the books – you can see, it's not just from a financial standpoint, it's not just from a building standpoint or asset standpoint. Look at all the people in here," Vinson said during the anniversary celebration.

BCBSTX initially opened in part of the Loop 322 building and grew to fill the space. The building has been remodeled on more than one occasion.

The bright-and-airy interior is divided into pods of half-wall cubicles, with a dining area centrally located and meeting spaces on the perimeter.

A BCBSTX job benefits not only the employee, but "the city at large benefits from our employees then going out in the community and supporting local businesses," Garcia said.

Those employees also often volunteer in the community, totaling a combined 550 hours in the first quarter of 2022, Brown said.

In that spirit of volunteerism, employees gathered prior to the 25th anniversary celebration items to donate to local nursing home residents, including toiletries, socks and coloring books. The items were bagged after the program.

The employees have "made us successful for the last 25 years here in Abilene, and they will be the reason that we continue to provide and make a difference in the community for many more years to come," Brown said.

More: DCOA's Misty Mayo reflects on two years of growth, future endeavors

More: DCOA unmasked: Development entity has its critics but emphasizes role in Abilene's future

Laura Gutschke is a general assignment reporter and food columnist and manages online content for the Reporter-News.  If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com. 

A building that Timex forgot

Time stopped for Timex at its Abilene plant in late 1977, but business continued not as usual for the watch company's manufacturing site at 4002 Loop 322.

For the past 25 years, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas Abilene has called the building home.

Timex, then known as U.S. Time Corp., opened in Abilene in 1949 and constructed in 1974 the 158,000-square-foot plant on 78 acres in a then undeveloped section of town. Construction cost $2.7 million, according to Reporter-News files. 

Some operations also continued at Timex's original location at 709 N. Second St.

The company's Abilene workforce jumped from 1,113 in 1973 to 1,779 because of the expanded workspace to manufacture conventional mechanical watches. 

The next year, the company was one of six in the state to receive the Governor's Industrial Expansion Award. 

With the advance of "solid state watches," however, time ran out for the Abilene plant, which at its peak employed 2,000 people. Timex officials announced in October 1976 that the plant could not be reconfigured for the newer electrical timepieces and would be shuttered within a year.

The building was not empty for long. 

Texas Instruments, Inc. bought the building in November 1977 for about $3.5 million, according to Reporter-News files. Production began the next year on circuit boards and other products for defense clients.

Fourteen years late, TI consolidated Abilene's workload at other plants and ceased local operations.

Ownership of the plant was transferred from TI to the Development Corporation of Abilene in February 1995, according to the Taylor County Central Appraisal District website. 

Two years later, BCBSTX opened in the building, adding a new notation to the building's timeline. 

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas marks healthy 25 years in Abilene