National Grid leaving Westborough
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Westborough - National Grid announced Dec. 3 that it is consolidating its New England operations, leaving town and reducing employment in central Massachusetts by 1,100.

The move will terminate a relationship of more than 40 years between the town and the company, which arrived in 1963 as a satellite office of New England Electric System. New England Electric System moved its corporate office to Westborough in 1967.

National Grid is the secondlargest gas and electric utility supplier in the United States.

National Grid is centralizing almost all of its operations in the state to an office park in Waltham. Company officials said it will vacate its 280,000-square-foot building at 25 Research Drive.

Because of the consolidation, more than 1,700 employees will be moved to an office park in Waltham, just off Route 128. The relocation is expected to be finished by the end of 2009.

National Grid's Westborough offices, considered to be the company's U.S. headquarters until 18 months ago, employs about 900. Another 600 employees work at a 160,000-squarefoot building at 55 Bearfoot Road, Northborough.

Westborough Town Coordinator Henry Danis said the town is still receiving details of National Grid's plan for its relocation as it relates to Westborough and all the area residents it employs.

"Hopefully, as we move through the process, they'll have compassion for the many longtime employees who have worked there," Danis said.

Corridor Nine Chamber of Commerce President Barbara Clifford lamented the loss of National Grid, which she said was an active partner on many chamber boards as well as the Worcester Business Development Corp. and other local and regional ventures.

"It's a terrible loss, for both the business community and all the people who make their homes in the area and have come to depend on National Grid for their livelihood," Clifford said. "At this point I'm encouraged that National Grid will be staying in Northborough."

The Northborough facility, which has been a call center for National Grid for several years, will employee about 400 workers when all the moves are completed. In addition to remaining a call center, additional functions such as dispatch operations and data processing will be housed at the Bearfoot Road building.

Officials stressed that these consolidation changes will not affect electricity and gas services to its customers in the region.

National Grid spokesperson Jackie Barry said that even though Westborough and Waltham are close to each other geographically, there is no guarantee that jobs will be shifted from Westborough to Waltham.

"Where employees work in the future has to do with the nature of their job," Barry said. "They could end up in Northborough or Waltham, but those jobs could be shifted to regional centers in New York as well. It's too early in the process to know what is going to be where."