Boston Financial Data Services Inc. isn't even completely moved in yet, and company officials already have high hopes for the mutual fund-processing operation in Lawrence.

The center, at 2000 Bluffs Drive, today boasts a payroll of 124 full-time associates and another 100 part-timers - a work force poised to expand as the company picks up more business processing change-of-address requests, fund-purchase orders and other transactions for millions of shareholders.

Boston Financial is assuming control of the center from DST, which bought the building in 2000 for its own account-processing business. Boston Financial is owned jointly by DST and State Street Corp.

Photo by Nick Krug

Tom McDonnell, president and chief executive officer for DST Systems Inc., left, speaks with, from left, Jill Metzler of Boston Financial Data Services Inc., Boston Financial president and chief executive officer Steve Hooley and Lawrence Mayor Mike Amyx before a gathering welcoming Boston Financial to town outside the former DST building at 2000 Bluffs Drive.

"This is a great opportunity for us," said Steve Hooley, Boston Financial's president and chief executive officer, in Lawrence for a ceremony marking the transition. "We've had tremendous success to date, and this is really going to be a growth center for us. The plan is for us to grow this operation, to double it in the next two years and grow beyond that."

The center could have 450 employees by the end of 2008, Hooley said, with about 70 percent of the payroll to be working on a "flex-time" basis. The company is counting on its ability to attract students from Kansas, Baker and Haskell Indian Nations universities to work 20 hours a week.

The center currently runs operations from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays, plus abbreviated shifts on weekends. But officials are looking to start bringing in some employees at 6 a.m., and future needs could get work going as early as 3 a.m.

Such extended hours will allow the company to further take advantage of its DST technology, which allows Boston Financial workers in Boston or Kansas City, Mo., to scan in documents that can be processed in Lawrence.

"There's a real intention to site more jobs in the Midwest than on the East Coast, because we need some geographic diversity," said Tom McDonnell, president and CEO of DST Systems, which is based in Kansas City, Mo. "This is one of our - well, this is our primary site, so I think you can expect to see us expand here successfully."

Both DST, which owns the property, and Boston Financial, which is leasing the building, are making physical preparations for the growth. Some DST operations already have been transferred out of the building, and additional work stations have been positioned on the ground floor.

"The facility, from just a physical seating standpoint, could handle 450 at any one time," McDonnell said. "But when you look at multiple-shift operations - using the same desktop for addressing calls coming in from different time zones and so forth - we could really accommodate a work force of 600 to 700 here, so this will be our area of expansion for the predictable future."

Boston Financial already has more than 3,000 employees in the Boston and Kansas City areas, including Lawrence. Together they process accounts and transactions for more than 26 million shareholders.