Command Center Inc., the Post Falls-based temporary staffing company, has set up an office in tornado-devastated Joplin, Mo., and earlier this month began hiring workers from that region to handle cleanup and reconstruction jobs.

As rebuilding ramps up, the company expects to hire more than 150 workers a day, many of whom were displaced from their employment by the May 22 disaster.

The company first set up in Joplin in a parking lot about a week after the tornado and brought its computers, phones, and technology because much of the city's office spaces were destroyed, says Ron Junck, executive vice president. It has since found a permanent Joplin office space.

Setting up staffing operations at natural disaster sites is one part of what the company does nationally, Junck adds.

"We do a lot of disaster restoration work," Junck says. The company set up operations soon after the Gulf Coast oil spill and Hurricane Katrina, among other disasters, he says.

Command Center also has 54 regular offices in 24 states and provides workers for manual labor, light-industrial jobs, and skilled-trade applications. It serves mostly small- to mid-sized business in a number of industries, including construction, transportation, warehousing, landscaping, light-manufacturing, retail, wholesale, and facilities.

Locally, along with its headquarters at 3773 W. Fifth in Post Falls, the company has offices at 8 W. Indiana in Spokane and at 2506 N. Fourth in Coeur d'Alene.

Command Center didn't have a presence in Joplin previously, but it expects to keep an operation in that city beyond the temporary tornado reconstruction work, Junck says.

He says the company has about five employees in a team that responds quickly to such disasters, including a regional vice president based in Post Falls. That regional vice president went to Joplin for the set-up, along with team employees from around the U.S., Junck says.

He says that although the company expects its hiring of temporary workers for reconstruction to ramp up soon, the process has slowed because insurance adjusters are working throughout the city to determine claims.

"There will be two distinct phases," Junck says. "The first one is demolition because there are so many properties that need to have debris removed. The second phase will be the actual rebuilding, and that will involve all the construction trades."