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Wescom Buys Anaheim Site, Up to 500 Workers Planned

Pasadena-based Wescom Credit Union plans to open an administration center in Anaheim later this year that could employ up to 500 workers.

The move would make Wescom the second-biggest credit union in Orange County by employees.

Wescom paid $17.4 million to San Juan Capistrano-based Birtcher Anderson Realty LLC in the fall for a four-story, 117,523-square-foot office building at 5601 E. La Palma Ave.

The credit union is renovating the site following the departure of title insurer First American Corp., which moved operations to its Santa Ana headquarters.

First American’s relocation of about 550 employees out of East Anaheim’s Canyon Corporate Center was finished in December, said spokesman David Schulz. First American is consolidating operations at its Santa Ana campus, which it has expanded during the past few years.

Wescom, the 14th largest credit union in the U.S. with about $3 billion in assets, was founded in 1934 as a credit union for telecommunications employees. It has grown to become the fourth largest in California.

The Orange County Teachers Federal Credit Union is the county’s biggest and California’s second largest credit union at $5.7 billion in assets. It has more than 700 local workers, according to regulatory filings.

Wescom operates a small back office processing center in Tustin, which it plans to close once the Anaheim renovations are completed by summer, said Tim Dolan, Wescom’s vice president of facilities and administrative services.

Wescom plans to remodel the building, improve its wiring and fold a parking area into the building to boost office space.

Initially, Wescom will employ up to 300 people at the building, with plans to expand to 500 workers.

“We’re growing at a pretty good clip,” Dolan said. “We’ve outgrown here,” he said of the credit union’s four-story headquarters along Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.

The Anaheim facility is set to provide some backup as part of Wescom’s disaster preparedness planning. The location also will be used for auto, consumer and mortgage lending, including some commercial deals involving apartments.

The Anaheim operation will house Wescom’s insurance services unit, a telephone call center for its 250,000 members and its Western Services Group.

The credit union’s Western Services Group provides technology and services to smaller credit unions that lack the resources to build their own disaster recovery back office, Dolan said.

Some of the unit’s services include online bill paying, computer storage backup, check processing and fund balancing for bank machines.

Several OC credit unions have deals with its Western Services Group, including Health Associates Federal Credit Union in Orange, Orange County’s Credit Union in Santa Ana, Pacific Community Credit Union in Fullerton and Partners Federal Credit Union in Anaheim.

Wescom has 40 branches scattered across Southern California, with plans to open another eight to 10 during the next three years, Dolan said. Wescom has 11 branches in OC.

“When you map out our demographics and the people we serve, it made sense” to base its regional processing operations in Anaheim, Dolan said.

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “From a culture standpoint, we have been accustomed to operating in one building,now we’ll have split administrations.”

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