A Montreal company that makes fleet management systems for ready-mix concrete firms plans to open its U.S. corporate headquarters at FirstPark in Oakland and hopes to grow that operation to 15 to 20 employees by the end of 2015.

Road King Technologies Inc. will lease a corporate office in a building owned by an accounting firm in the park, according to Brad Jackson, executive director of the park and Kennebec Regional Development Authority, the governing organization of the park.

The Canadian technology company is the first tenant Jackson has brought in since taking over the position in March 2013.

Harry Marks, president of Road King Technologies, said the company has hoped to open in the U.S. since last year when a representative from AT&T approached the company to sell data lines for Road King’s products. The systems are installed in ready-mixed concrete trucks and allow companies to manage their fleets with the web-based software.

The company is using Alternative Manufacturing Inc., a circuit board manufacturing company in Winthrop, to produce the hardware, Marks said.

He expects Road King Technologies to double its annual sales of $1 million next year and triple them the following year. AT&T and Verizon plan to sell the products to customers all over the country, Marks said.

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“By having a space – we don’t really need to do it, but I want to do it because I think the opportunities are going to be 10 times bigger than they are in Canada,” Marks said.

FirstPark is a collaboration of 24 communities from Kennebec and Somerset counties that joined 15 years ago to build the regional business park and spur economic development in central Maine. It’s come nowhere near the 3,000 jobs in 20 years the founders predicted, but Jackson has said he’s taking a different approach to attracting business. He’s been trying to meet with growing businesses and pitching central Maine as a whole. Road King Technologies is one of the nine in the Montreal area Jackson met with in April, he said.

Since last fall, Jackson has met with about 30 companies from Ottawa, Ontario, to London, he said. Around two-thirds of the companies are viable as tenants, he said.

Neither the development authority nor the 24 communities that invested millions to build the park will immediately benefit from the new business, but Jackson is hoping it sets the tone for future development. If the company opens in a new building, the communities would receive increased tax revenue from the new building along with the lot sale.

“We have a technology company in our technology park. That’s very positive toward really moving toward the vision that the people of the Kennebec Valley had when they started this project back in the mid to late ’90s,” Jackson said. “I think it’s great news and hopefully more to follow.”

The only major business the development authority has attracted to the park is a T-Mobile call center that opened in 2006. Besides that, there are fewer than two dozen small medical offices and financial firms in the park. Some tax revenue is returned to communities annually, but in recent years they’ve been getting back only 40 percent of what they paid.

As of last year, the communities had lost more than $5 million on the investment.


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