For the last five years, Lance Deitrick has owned his own construction company.

But this year, business has slowed dramatically. That’s what brought him to TeleTech on Tuesday morning. He was at the company’s job fair, hoping to land one of the 100 jobs the Kalispell call center plans to add by March.

For the last five years, Lance Deitrick has owned his own construction company.

For a while, business was good at Beyond Concrete. Even last year, when the economy began to tank, Deitrick was busy with remodels.

But this year, business has slowed dramatically. Deitrick, 37, estimates his Kalispell business is at about 20 percent of what it was last year.

“We went from new construction to remodels, and now remodels have stopped,” Deitrick said.

That’s what brought him to TeleTech on Tuesday morning. He was at the company’s job fair, hoping to land one of the 100 jobs the Kalispell call center plans to add by March.

Eighty or more people attended the job fair Tuesday, site director Tory Graham said, and people trickled steadily in all day. She said she expects more of the same today, when the fair continues from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the TeleTech office, 1203 U.S. 2 W., in the Community Center former Gateway West Mall.

Those who are unable to make it to TeleTech today have another opportunity from 8 a.m. until  5 p.m. Thursday and Friday at the Flathead Job Service, 421 First Ave. E., Kalispell. TeleTech and job service employees will be on hand to help applicants through the process.

Some people — Graham declined to say how many — left the fair Tuesday with job offers, and more likely will be offered jobs throughout the week.

Some of them could start work as early as Monday, the first date TeleTech will offer a training class for its new employees. Graham would not say how many people could attend each class, but said the company will hold several of them from now until March.

The classes teach new employees about TeleTech’s clients and how to help customers. All of the new jobs, which are part-time and full-time, are inbound customer support positions.

Deitrick said he has customer service skills thanks to his building company. But he never expected to find himself seated in a hard chair outside the TeleTech office.

“When you own a business, it’s not what you expect to have to do, to find additional work,” he said. “But you do what you’ve got to do to take care of your family.”

Star Leight, 37, hopes to get a position at TeleTech so she can stay close to her family, most of whom live in Eureka.

Leight said she quit a job with The Boeing Co. earlier this year. She was tired of living in Everett, Wash., and wanted to move somewhere rural.

“It was really good money, but money isn’t everything,” Leight said. “I wanted to be out in the country again, somewhere less populated, with less hustle and bustle.”

She has been staying with family in Eureka since about mid-November, but will move to Kalispell if she gets hired at TeleTech. If she doesn’t get the job, Leight said she will go to long haul trucking school in Salt Lake City or aviation mechanics school in Dallas.

“I’ll go wherever I have to go to get myself back on my feet,” she said.

Mike Hascall was at Tuesday’s job fair hoping to secure “supplemental work.” Hascall, 60, of Columbia Falls, retired from a phone company about two and a half years ago and until about a month ago had supplemental work at the Hampton Inn.

Since the hotel laid him off, Hascall said he has applied for jobs at other business, but they were all filled before he got there.

The opportunity to work at TeleTech is the “most open-looking I’ve seen so far,” he said.

The job opportunity attracted people of all ages and experience to the fair. Anna Helander, a 20-year-old Whitefish resident, has worked in the deli at Super 1 Foods in Whitefish for the last six months.

Her hours at the deli have been slashed recently, Helander said, and she’s hoping to get more hours at TeleTech.

“If they offer me full time, I’ll take it,” she said.

She also hopes to make a little more money, she said. TeleTech’s jobs start at $9.75 an hour, Graham said, and offer benefits for full- and part-time employees after one month.

Nineteen-year-old Kassaundra Luberts is looking for steady employment at TeleTech. The 2009 Glacier High School graduate has been baby-sitting for the last several months, but those hours aren’t as reliable as a full-time job would be, she said.

“I needed a job that was actually going to pay me,” she said, adding that this has been her third straight week without a baby-sitting gig. “I needed something that was going to be reliable.”

Luberts may go to college eventually, but for the moment, she doesn’t want to go back to school. For one thing, she said, she doesn’t know what career she wants to pursue. For another, she said she doesn’t have the money for school.

If she gets hired, Luberts said she will work at TeleTech “however long it takes” her to figure out what she might want to do next.

For more information about TeleTech, visit www.teletech.com. Interested candidates should apply online at www.hirepoint.com or visit the Kalispell office.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com