Golden Living exec: Travel, not talent, pushed Dallas move

Neil Kurtz wants to make it clear that recruiting executive talent to the Fort Smith area is not a problem, and IS NOT why Golden Living is moving its corporate headquarters to Plano (Dallas).

What’s more, Kurtz said an estimate of between 150-200 new jobs coming to Fort Smith as a result of the reorganization “is not far” from what may be reality.

Kurtz, the president and CEO of Golden Living, spent most of Thursday (Mar. 10) with state officials and the press announcing and explaining three “key initiatives” that include moving the company’s headquarters from Fort Smith to Dallas and the possibility of increasing the number of jobs in Fort Smith.

The company’s 5-story, 318,000-square-foot building in Fort Smith that previously served as the corporate headquarters will become an administrative center. The company now employs about 675 in Fort Smith, and no more than 15 people now working in Fort Smith are expected to move to Dallas. (Link here for more info on the initiatives.)

In a Thursday afternoon interview, Kurtz was quick to reject any perception that the company or Ron Silva are having trouble finding top executive talent willing to live in the Fort Smith area. Silva owns San Francisco-based Fillmore Capital Partners.

“I feel strongly that we have recruited top talent into Fort Smith,” Kurtz said. “Many in my executive team live in Fort Smith. … and we have not really found that it is tough to recruit into Fort Smith.”

He added, for emphasis: “It was not the driving force for why we did this move.”

Kurtz said the primary reason for moving corporate headquarters to Dallas is because the top execs spend most of their time traveling to the more than 300 Golden LivingCenters in 21 states. The company also provides services to more than 1,000 nursing homes, hospitals and other care facilities in 37 states.

“As a company we have executives literally all over the country and our jobs require us to travel quite a bit,” Kurtz said, adding that using smaller regional airports results in “a lot of down time” that is unacceptable.

The company could have bought a corporate jet to fix the problem. With a corporate jet, Kurtz said he “could very definitely recruit top talent into Fort Smith.” But Kurtz is not comfortable buying a corporate jet for a company that makes much of its money from government reimbursements.

“I did not think that was the proper way to spend taxpayer money,” Kurtz said.

Therefore, the focus was to find a city with a larger airport that also had a direct link to Fort Smith. Because Memphis and Dallas-Fort Worth are the only direct connections with the Fort Smith Regional Airport, it narrowed down the choice, with Kurtz acknowledging that Tennessee and Texas were the bidders.

Back in Fort Smith, Kurtz said the company and Silva are “very bullish” on the future of Golden Living and “we have plans to grow the Fort Smith campus substantially.”

Kurtz also said tax law differences between Arkansas and Texas was not a factor in the decision to move the corporate headquarters. Texas, unlike Arkansas, has no income or corporate tax, and has no capital gains tax with the exception of capital gains distributions from mutual funds.

Near the end of the brief interview, Kurtz returned to the point of Fort Smith remaining a key part of Golden Living.

“I just want to keep emphasizing the importance Fort Smith has to Golden Living,” Kurtz said, with a reminder that the operation in Fort Smith will soon add new jobs.