A newly formed Spokane company has opened a marketing and distribution operation here and plans to open three more such operations here, in the Tri-Cities, and in the Seattle area. The company, Aris Marketing Inc., expects to employ a total of roughly 80 people at the four operations, including 40 here.


Aris will sell principally to other businesses, including retailers, the merchandise of such big-name enterprises as Crayola, Disney, the National Football League, and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), says its owner, 37-year-old Jim Ocariz.


Aris Marketing will have a working relationship with D.S. Max, a diversified conglomerate thats a major supplier to retailers, Ocariz says. He says D.S. Max bought for him a building at 204 S. Koren to help him start his operation, but does that only for a handful of the employees of its affiliates who demonstrate a strong entrepreneurial bent.


D.S. Max will supply Aris Marketing with goods on consignment, although Aris wont be limited to handling merchandise solely from D.S. Max, Ocariz says.


In many cases, Aris staff members will be dealing with clients for whom marketing campaigns already have been or will be designed by Granton Marketing, a fast-growing Toronto-based D.S. Max subsidiary, Ocariz says. Those campaigns combine sales or even giveaways of brand-name merchandise with other goals such as beefing up sales at restaurants, adding guests at hotels, and selling the tickets of major professional sports franchises, Grantons Web site says. It says Grantons marketing clients have included the Applebees and Pizza Hut chains, DoubleTree and Marriott inns, and the San Francisco Giants and Utah Jazz.


In one such campaign, D.S. Max sales affiliates contacted retailers who offered stuffed toy puppies from Disney in local markets when the moviemakers 102 Dalmations film opened in theaters.


Aris Marketings staff members will handle their contacts with businesses and other clients face-to-face, Ocariz says. He says Aris Marketings employees wont do telephone sales.


Ocariz says he chose Spokane as the location of his new company because research showed that 58,000 people here are working in jobs in which theyre not happy. Those Spokane-area residents are making up to $17 an hour, but want to make more than $20 an hour, which would put them at annual incomes of $45,000 or more, he says. The workers he is targeting are well-educated, are qualified for better jobs, and are willing to learn and to travel in their jobs, he says.


While he was urged to go to Seattle, San Francisco, or Boise to open his business, he found that people in those cities arent hungry compared with the available workers in the Spokane area, Ocariz says.


He says that out of a planned work force of 20 in his first operation here, three workers will rise to become assistant managers and will be paid base salaries of $35,000, plus bonuses, and two others will become full managers who will receive base salaries of $50,000, plus bonuses. Salespeople who will receive commissons or a base salary and commissions, depending on their preference, Ocariz says.


Employees at D.S. Max-affiilated marketing operations earn average annual bonuses of $15,000 a year, Ocariz asserts. He says Aris Marketing will offer full benefits, including medical and dental plans and retirement plans through profit-sharing and will put its hirees through training.


Ocariz has been hiring for his first Spokane operation and says he hopes to open his second Spokane division within three months in the same building. The Spokane Area Economic Development Council announced that Ocariz would open his company here.