To Alliance Data, you look great, Cd'A

COEUR d'ALENE - Derrek Thomas is leaving the Mile High City for the City by the Lake.

The operations manager for Alliance Data who will help oversee the Coeur d'Alene call center loves what he sees about the place he and his family will soon call home.

"This is my second time here," Thomas said during an interview this week, and added, laughing: "But I've toured it many times online. I know it really well from space."

According to Thomas, it's even better on the ground than it is looking down from above.

Lance Beck, who manages Alliance Data throughout the western U.S., brought the Thomases on a "look and see" trip in early December.

"We were about 75 percent there," Thomas said of their inclination to move here. "I was 90 and my wife was 75."

On their drive in from Spokane International, though, Mother Nature's North Idaho ambassadors were on call.

"We get about halfway down (at Higgens Point) and look out the passenger side window and there's a bald eagle soaring along," Thomas said. "We get down to the end and there are packs of bald eagles. That was my welcome.

"Steve, I'm sure, arranged that," he added, referring to Jobs Plus President Steve Griffitts.

Later, the Thomases had lunch with then-Mayor Sandi Bloem at Beverly's, then toured the Kroc Center.

"My wife teared up over the tour of the Kroc Center," Thomas said. "She could see our 1-year-old playing there. We were way over 100 percent by the end of the day."

With customer service his primary work responsibility, Thomas kept a keen eye on that during his first trip to Coeur d'Alene.

"To me, it really feels like I've come home, whether I spend time downtown or I talk to the people around town," he said. "I feel like I can get my arms around town and it just feels like everyone's so friendly and open. It's a great place."

Beck drew grin-stretching comparisons between Coeur d'Alene and the community in the Chevy Chase movie "Funny Farm," where everyone in that small town gets paid to be nice to visitors. Thomas agreed.

"We'd go into a restaurant and someone would say, 'Are you the Thomases from Denver?'" Derrek said. "I think Steve was greasing people. It wouldn't surprise me at all."

"We got on the elevator and these three children were like, 'Hello, good evening,'" Beck added. "Who does that? I like to quote Derrek. He says, 'People here are just wicked nice.'

"That's what's encouraging about the business potential here. When you see and interact with people in the community, in no formal way, what you get is a real genuineness. I think that's going to fit us well."