News

New Horizons computer center closes

For awhile, in early 2000, things could hardly have gone better for the Missoula office of New
Horizons Computer Learning Center.

By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian

"We were turning $400,000, $500,000 in sales per month," said Rod Harsell, who worked for New
Horizons as sales manager of the Missoula office, which was located on North Reserve Street. "And
the nut was somewhere around $150,000, so I know we were making major money."

Those were the days when you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing an advertisement to get
computer training from New Horizons. Or read the newspaper. Or watch TV.

"I bought every kind of media advertisement because we were rocking," said Harsell, who now works
for Invizeon. "We’d really tapped into a market where there was no competition and lots of demand."

Those days are over. After declaring bankruptcy late last year, the office closed its doors last week.

The closure came after the Montana business failed to renegotiate its franchise agreement with the
national company.

"They have certain debts to the corporation," said Jerry Wright, the national company’s North
American vice president of field support. "They could either negotiate a settlement of that or decline
to continue the franchise agreement. Their choice was not to continue."

Tom Kennedy, owner of the two Montana New Horizons offices – the other is in Billings – did not
return Missoulian phone calls.

Wright said the business could continue to operate independently, and said he was hopeful that the
local business would honor training commitments it already had entered into.

"Those people are entitled to get what they have paid for," Wright said.

Wright said that customers who have trouble with the local company can contact the national
corporation.

"Their problem is with the local company, but if they’re having trouble, we’ll try to help them," Wright
said.

The corporate contact is Jacque Schneider at (714) 940-8246. Her e-mail address is
[email protected].

New Horizons’ Missoula office focused on two sorts of customers: business and government offices
that need to provide computer training – particularly Microsoft training – for employees, and the
so-called "selfers," people looking to train for a new career or simply better themselves.

"It turned out there are a lot of people out there willing to pay $10,000 for computer training," Harsell
said.

According to New Horizons’ business plan, franchises should focus their marketing efforts about
equally on institutional and individual customers.

Former employees who spoke to the Missoulian on condition of anonymity said the company failed
by focusing too heavily on selfers.

"My feeling is that things started to go downhill when we moved away from that plan," said one former
employee.

Beyond the bankruptcy and subsequent closure, what’s interesting about the New Horizons situation
is how its decline served to create at least two new companies – CerTech and Intersoft Education.

Both of those companies do computer training and both are staffed by former New Horizons
employees.

"They sort of created competition where there was none by treating everyone so badly," said one
former employee who now works with one of the new companies.

Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or by e-mail at [email protected].

http://missoulian.com/display/inn_news/news05.txt

Posted in:

Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.