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BURLINGTON — Laboratory Corp. of America will consolidate its billing operations in Greensboro, bringing approximately 350 new jobs into the state and transferring up to 50 employees from other locations.

Officials with the Burlington-based LabCorp said they expect to move into an existing building on Pinecroft Road in Greensboro sometime within the next four months. The company has pledged to invest nearly $4 million over the next three years.

Nearly $900,000 in incentives offered by the state, Greensboro and Guilford County did play a part in the company’s decision to relocate in Greensboro’s “urban area,” said LabCorp CEO David King . But other factors played a bigger part.

“The major deciding point was the availability of facilities that would meet the needs of a consolidated national billing center, as well as our perception, based on workforce surveys, that we already employ the vast majority of top flight workers here in Alamance County who would be eligible for these jobs,” King said.

Guilford County, he said, had a larger job pool from which the company could draw.

LabCorp is a national medical laboratory testing services company with about 28,000 employees. The average salary at the Greensboro location is estimated to be about $26,000 per year.

With the state’s economy still struggling, such a major jobs announcement drew accolades from a broad spectrum of government officials, including Gov. Bev Perdue, Rep. Brad Miller, Greensboro Mayor Bill Knight and Guilford County Commissioners Chairman Melvin “Skip” Alston.

“There is no question that the $373,000 (city-granted) incentive was the right thing at the right time for Greensboro,” Knight said. “In fact, this investment will be recouped in five years.”

Guilford County gave $248,000 in incentives.

Cities typically see incentives repaid by boosts in taxes paid by companies and their workers. King said he hoped the company’s investment would repay the government investment sooner than that and added that the billing center could expand in the future.

During her remarks, Perdue characterized the LabCorp deal as an example of “after care,” saying the state needed to tend to homegrown and existing companies to make sure they’re “happy and contented.” The governor also credited Linda Carlisle , a Greensboro businesswoman and volunteer who is now the state Secretary of Cultural Resources, with getting her directly involved in the deal.

In an interview after the official announcement, Carlisle played down her involvement, saying she only made a few phone calls and alerted Perdue to the deal in progress.

“Folks called me and said, 'We’re at a point, we’re really concerned that some other areas may be getting a leg up on this, and we really need an extra nudge on this,” Carlisle said. People working to recruit the project to Greensboro, she said, worried that other locations may have been more aggressively courting LabCorp.

Danville, Va., just north of the North Carolina border, was among the other cities considered by LabCorp.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com