Troy Shantz
About half of the fifth floor of the St. Clair Corporate Centre in downtown Sarnia has been leased to a software company with plans of further expansion.
U.S-based Clear Care Inc. arrived in Sarnia last year when it purchased HomeTrak, a homegrown software company and competitor located on Exmouth Street.
The combined company has grown from 20 local employees to nearly 50 and moved into the 9,600-square-feet of office space this spring.
“We are a lot more economical for hiring than in California,” said Moyra Miller, VP of customer success.
“Clear Care approved this much space with expansion in mind.”
The company, based in San Francisco, makes software used by 4,000 private duty home-care agencies providing housekeeping, maintenance and other services to independent-living seniors.
The software allows the agencies to manage billing, payroll and scheduling in a web-browser based interface, Miller explained.
“They really liked our culture, they loved our product, and the fact that we had a lot of brilliant minds,” she said.
“We’ve really meshed well, and they’ve expanded us.”
The open and well-lit space overlooking Sarnia Bay is home to software developers and customer service staff, and the plan is to bring on more engineers and people with other skill sets, Miller added.
Technical project manager Will Kapteyn said he’s optimistic about the future for the local workforce.
“There’s a good pool of candidates (in Sarnia),” he said.
“You’re going to get people to fill these positions … they’re going to be here for a long time.”