# OKCpedia > Summary & Reference Articles >  Largest Area Employers

## Pete

Source:  OKC Chamber of Commerce														
April 2017														

	Company Name
	HQ
	# Employees
	Sector

	State of Oklahoma

	45,600
	Government

	Tinker Air Force Base

	24,000
	Military

	University of Oklahoma - Norman

	12,700
	Higher Education

	FAA Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center

	7,000
	Aerospace

	INTEGRIS Health
	✓
	6,000
	Health Care

	Hobby Lobby Stores Inc
	✓
	5,100
	Wholesale & Retail

	University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

	5,000
	Higher Education

	City of Oklahoma City

	4,700
	Government

	Mercy Hospital
	✓
	4,500
	Health Care

	OGE Energy Corp
	✓
	3,400
	Utility

	OU Medical Center

	3,200
	Health Care

	SSM Health Care of Oklahoma, Inc.
	✓
	3,000
	Health Care

	University of Central Oklahoma

	3,000
	Higher Education

	Norman Regional Hospital

	2,950
	Health Care

	AT&T

	2,700
	Telecommunications

	The Boeing Company

	2,600
	Aerospace

	Devon Energy Corp
	✓
	2,500
	Oil & Gas

	Chesapeake Energy Corp
	✓
	2,500
	Oil & Gas

	Sonic Corp
	✓
	2,460
	Wholesale & Retail

	Oklahoma City Community College

	2,100
	Higher Education

	Dell

	1,800
	Sales & Business Services

	UPS

	1,800
	Transportation

	Hertz Corporation

	1,700
	Rental Services

	Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores
	✓
	1,700
	Retail

	American Fidelity
	✓
	1,650
	Finance/Insurance

	Cox Communications

	1,400
	Telecommunications

	Great Plains Coca-Cola Bottling Company

	1,300
	Beverage Distribution

	Farmers Insurance Group

	1,300
	Customer Service

	Midfirst Bank
	✓
	1,150
	Finance

	Bank of Oklahoma

	1,100
	Finance

	Dolese Bros. Co.
	✓
	1,100
	Manufacturing

	Continental Resources
	✓
	1,000
	Oil & Gas

	Deaconess Hospital
	✓
	1,000
	Health Care

	Rose State College

	1,000
	Higher Education

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## TAlan CB

Does the State of Oklahoma employment numbers mean OKC metro - or the entire state?  Honestly, I don't believe it employs nearly as many as Tinker in the OKC metro.

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## Pete

> Does the State of Oklahoma employment numbers mean OKC metro - or the entire state?  Honestly, I don't believe it employs nearly as many as Tinker in the OKC metro.


These numbers are just for the OKC area.

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## Dubya61

If Walmart and WM Neighborhood Markets has 30 stores in the OKC area, how do they avoid being on this list?  What is the average employment footprint of a Walmart, WN Neighborhood Market or Walmart Supercenter?




> There was a study done showing Wal-Mart Super Centers, Wal-Marts, and WM Neighborhood Markets dominated the OKC grocery scene in an unprecedented way, fully 40% (!!) in 2010, with Sam's Clubs accounting for almost another 6%.  That is nearly HALF the total grocery market.
> 
> I can't imagine an MSA of over 1 million with anything close to this.

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## catch22

I bet the employment list goes off of full time employees.

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## Pete

> If Walmart and WM Neighborhood Markets has 30 stores in the OKC area, how do they avoid being on this list?  What is the average employment footprint of a Walmart, WN Neighborhood Market or Walmart Supercenter?


Great question!

According to W-M, super centers employ 300 and neighborhood markets about 100.

Even if many of those jobs are part-time -- and I'd bet most of them aren't -- seems like they would make this list easily.

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## SOONER8693

Moore Public Schools employs over 2300 people.

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## Pete

> Moore Public Schools employs over 2300 people.


Yes, seems strange none of the school districts are shown here.

Could they be included as state employees?

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## Spartan

Yeah there are some irregularities with this list..

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## Mr. Cotter

> Yes, seems strange none of the school districts are shown here.
> 
> Could they be included as state employees?


That would be my guess.  OKCPS employs 2300 according to the ever-accurate Wikipedia.  That seems about right though - with 55 elementary schools, averaging 30 full time employees, OKCPS elementary schools on their own would make this list.

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## Snowman

> Yes, seems strange none of the school districts are shown here.
> 
> Could they be included as state employees?


I would expect them placed in the various city government numbers before the state numbers

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## Bellaboo

> I would expect them placed in the various city government numbers before the state numbers


School teachers are considered state employees. State retirement and so on...

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## SoonerDave

I think that Boeing facility way over by Tinker is running something over 1,300-1,400 employees now? And growing, I think?

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## Just the facts

> Great question!
> 
> According to W-M, super centers employ 300 and neighborhood markets about 100.
> 
> Even if many of those jobs are part-time -- and I'd bet most of them aren't -- seems like they would make this list easily.


You have to be careful when discussing walmart employment numbers.  The 300 figure is used a lot by Walmart but that is only when they first open the store.  After the store has been open people quit and they aren't replaced.  A supercenter that has been open for a year only employs about 150 people.

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## Pete

But even if they only employ 150 at the super centers, there are 11 (!) in the metro area, so that's well more than a thousand employees not even counting the neighborhood markets or Sam's Clubs.

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## Just the facts

Maybe Walmart chooses not to report their numbers to whomever the source is for the list.  Getting employment numbers can be hard because Walmart (and I am sure other companies) sell their 300 count as the basis for a lot of local incentives around the country.  If it was widely spread that the real number was 1/2 that it could cause problems for them.

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## Spartan

Simply put, I don't think it looks good for a major metro to have Walmart as one of its top employers. 

Also consider that the majority of Walmart employees are on public assistance because the corporation pays a national average of $8.81/hour (certainly lower in Oklahoma).

It's ugly.

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## ThomPaine

If they're going to include both full and part-time employees, the Oklahoma National Guard has over 10,000 statewide, about half that in the metro.  Of that number, somewhere around 1500 or so full- time statewide.

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## Mel

> Does the State of Oklahoma employment numbers mean OKC metro - or the entire state?  Honestly, I don't believe it employs nearly as many as Tinker in the OKC metro.


Have you ever noticed how many it takes to fill a pothole? 2 doing the work and 3 to supervise.

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## ljbab728

> Simply put, I don't think it looks good for a major metro to have Walmart as one of its top employers. 
> 
> Also consider that the majority of Walmart employees are on public assistance because the corporation pays a national average of $8.81/hour (certainly lower in Oklahoma).
> 
> It's ugly.


LOL, Spartan.  So are you suggesting that the Walmarts in OKC should start firing people so we can look better?

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## Pete

It could very well be that the Chamber doesn't want to list Wal-Mart and simply leaves them off.

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## Pete

The Chamber just released a new list of largest employers in the MSA.

I grouped them by category, which I think is quite interesting.  You could easily move the FAA Monroney Center into the Government / Military category, which would make that category almost 50% of the employees among area employers of over 1,000 personnel.

Also demonstrates that at 3.9% Oil & Gas is a far lower percentage than most assume.

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## Snowman

Did they change the way they group State of Oklahoma and Tinker? I know Tinker has been expanding but that seems a bit too much growth for either of them over the last three years.

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## Bellaboo

> Did they change the way they group State of Oklahoma and Tinker? I know *Tinker has been expanding but that seems a bit too much growth for either of them over the last three years*.


If I read that right, Tinker lost a thousand over the last 3 years ?

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## Snowman

> If I read that right, Tinker lost a thousand over the last 3 years ?


I think it has been updated since I posted that, it was showing around a 10x increase for both. I looked back to make sure I did not miss read it, though I guess there could have been a rendering glitch when the page loaded for me then.

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## Pete

^

These numbers are clearly estimates.

I suspect a good number of the gain in jobs out there is due to Boeing, as they doubled in the last 3 years and they are anticipated to add another 900 jobs.

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## AP

It's crazy that no one really talks about the FAA but they are huge. I didn't realize they were the 4th largest employer.

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## Pete

People are obsessed with the oil & gas industry as is the local media.

The FAA is huge and they are investing in significant improvements.

Also, they train people from all over the country so it brings in lots of visitors.

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## AP

That 3.9% is of the largest employers, right? It be interesting to see how many are employed in that sector metro wide and not just in companies over 1,000. I'd bet it's higher.

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## stile99

On the one hand I find this list interesting, on the other hand I wonder how useful/accurate it is.

Hear me out, I'm not trying to crap on the post, I have a genuine concern.  A lot of these companies/industries have made huge headlines for laying off a huge number of people, then hiring them back as contractors.  So when you say Company ABC had 1000 employees in 2013 and then 500 employees in 2016, is that a job loss of 500, or are those 500 people sitting in the same chair they were three years ago, just now their badge has a different company name on it?  For that matter, maybe there was a huge hiring spree, but only of contractors.  So is that reflected in the number?  Company XYZ had 1000 in 2013 and is listed as having 1000 in 2016, but actually there are 2000 people there, only 1000 are 'employed by' XYZ and the other 1000 are contractors so not counted?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

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## Pete

Also, it's been mentioned before but for some reason they always leave Walmart off this list.

A quick count shows 13 Supercenters, 8 Sam's Clubs and 17 Neighborhood Markets.

Assuming 300, 200 and 50 employees for these three types of stores, that's around 6,350 employees...  And I'm sure it's more than that.

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## Pete

Also, 7 Eleven has 110 (!) locations in the area and I'm sure they employ a couple of thousand people as well.

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## Jersey Boss

Based on the last two posts by Pete,  it would appear the report lacks credibility.

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## Pete

The Chamber probably relies on the companies to provide the numbers.

Having said that, it's a bit disingenuous to leave Walmart out as they could estimate, as I did here.  They are almost certainly the largest private employer in the area.

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## gopokes88

O&G can drive huge growth and create booms, but when oil is down OKC keeps chugging along just fine. We're a lot more diverse then people realize.

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## sooner88

It would also be interesting to see an average salary per category / employer, etc. Even though oil and gas is a much smaller percentage, I would bet their average salary is one of the highest (if not at the top). Regardless, it is really encouraging to see that much diversification and, as mentioned, helps to explain why we haven't seen as dramatic effect on our local economy as might be expected.

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## AP

I saw numbers earlier from the ok commerce website that said in the central ok region (greater okc) there were 41,000+ o&g jobs in 2013 and average salary was ~$105,000.

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## Teo9969

Oil being down means that OKC big money is down. The day to day economy should be fine, and as long as the banks don't over expose themselves to that sector, then they should be able to still function and operate at a decent level. However, it's harder for a bank to back real estate projects if its oil portfolio is getting smashed.

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## Snowman

> Based on the last two posts by Pete,  it would appear the report lacks credibility.


I was thinking the cutoff was on jobs that had an average wage that you could actually live on, since that will tell you more about the health of your job base than how many minimum wage jobs chain stores have.

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## Jersey Boss

> I was thinking the cutoff was on jobs that had an average wage that you could actually live on, since that will tell you more about the health of your job base than how many minimum wage jobs chain stores have.


There were no headers on the report that alluded to livable wage. That being said, the employees of 7-11 were not listed. When I see signs advertising "help wanted" it seems the starting wage is 10+ an hour, so that criteria is not being  used in ignoring  that employer. Obviously 7-11 employs as many as LOVES in the metro area. Additionally if you want an accurate picture of the health of your job base, failure to list WAL MART is a failure in painting the true health of your job base. This would be like getting a report on your physical that says you are in excellent health yet failing to note that you have a suspicious growth on your lung.

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## HOT ROD

Did I miss something? I don't recall seeing the Oklahoma City Public Schools nor the Putnam City or any other school district. Are they lumped into Govt or something? Surprising they do not have high numbers in the lists or maybe I missed them. ...

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## Pete

> Did I miss something? I don't recall seeing the Oklahoma City Public Schools nor the Putnam City or any other school district. Are they lumped into Govt or something? Surprising they do not have high numbers in the lists or maybe I missed them. ...


Lumped in with the state employees.

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## yukong

> Lumped in with the state employees.


I know it may be straining at gnats...but I submit teachers and employees of schools should be listed as employees of their various school districts and not state employees.  At the end of the day...I suppose they are "state employees" but in practical, every day operations, they are employees of their various school districts.  The state personnel office (OMES) has no say on who gets hired or not at Putnam City School District or Edmond, or OKCPS.  Employees of school districts are not under the state employee retirement system.  They are not under the state employee insurance system.  They are not to my knowledge subject to the state employee hiring freezes, exceptions, etc. that apply to regular state employees.  And their pay checks come from School District "X" and not the state treasurer.  Yes...a lot of the money used to pay school employees comes from the state treasury, but a sizeable portion doesn't come from the state treasury but in fact comes from the county in which the district sits.  

So, a truer picture of the employment numbers should have these folks broken out per the district for which they work.  It also will give a truer picture of how many employees work for the various state agencies that are under the oversight of OMES.

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## Pete

Yeah, don't know why they don't break out teachers and other school personnel; would make the numbers more interesting.

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## Pete

I updated this list with April 2017 numbers.

This list always excludes certain employers like Wal-mart and other retailers, as they should up on lists put out by the state.

Also note that Continental Resources -- despite it's high profile and influence -- is not above 1,000 and thus only a fraction of Devon and Chesapeake, which are both around 2,500 employees.

Based on reports to the City as part of a hiring incentive plan (part of the deal when they moved from Enid) their total number of employees is around 712.

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## gopokes88

> I updated this list with April 2017 numbers.
> 
> This list always excludes certain employers like Wal-mart and other retailers, as they should up on lists put out by the state.
> 
> Also note that Continental Resources -- despite it's high profile and influence -- is not above 1,000 and thus only a fraction of Devon and Chesapeake, which are both around 2,500 employees.
> 
> Based on reports to the City as part of a hiring incentive plan (part of the deal when they moved from Enid) their total number of employees is around 712.


Continental isn’t a huge company revenue wise. They’re a darling of Wall Street though which is why their market cap is almost the same size as Devon’s.

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## Bits_Of_Real_Panther

our HR sent out this "best companies" list, i'd never heard of the group that put the list together:

https://www.zippia.com/advice/17-bes...oklahoma-city/

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## dcsooner

With Alabama getting 4,000 jobs with new auto plant, wonder  why Oklahoma never seems to compete for or win relocation or new build manufacturing? This single focus on O&G is hurting the State and keeping Oklahoma poor. Maybe we should focus more on economic growth and development rather than new fast food restaurants or other relatively trivial development

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## Pete

> With Alabama getting 4,000 jobs with new auto plant, wonder  why Oklahoma never seems to compete for or win relocation or new build manufacturing? This single focus on O&G is hurting the State and keeping Oklahoma poor. Maybe we should focus more on economic growth and development rather than new fast food restaurants or other relatively trivial development


Boeing was a huge get with more than 2,000 high-paying jobs.

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## OkiePoke

> our HR sent out this "best companies" list, i'd never heard of the group that put the list together:
> 
> https://www.zippia.com/advice/17-bes...oklahoma-city/


That looks like someone went and looked at glassdoor reviews and selected them. They couldn't even crop pictures correctly. I wouldn't put much stock into that list.

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## dcsooner

> Boeing was a huge get with more than 2,000 high-paying jobs.


Pete, Boeing was a huge get,BUT, it was generated as a result of government ( Tinker). Oklahoma is a poor State, our leaders need to focus more on Job creation and retention, education etc things that will impact the overall standard of living of the citizens. People living in the State need to demand more of their leaders.

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## Bellaboo

> With Alabama getting 4,000 jobs with new auto plant, wonder  why Oklahoma never seems to compete for or win relocation or new build manufacturing? This single focus on O&G is hurting the State and keeping Oklahoma poor. Maybe we should focus more on economic growth and development rather than new fast food restaurants or other relatively trivial development


SkyWest Maintenance was a huge get too - and non oil & gas.

375 good paying jobs.

http://www.okctalk.com/content.php?r...75-jobs-to-OKC

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## Urbanized

> Boeing was a huge get with more than 2,000 high-paying jobs.


You’re shouting into the wind.

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## Pete

> Pete, Boeing was a huge get,BUT, it was generated as a result of government ( Tinker). Oklahoma is a poor State, our leaders need to focus more on Job creation and retention, education etc things that will impact the overall standard of living of the citizens. People living in the State need to demand more of their leaders.


Unemployment rate is 4.2%, about as low as it can go.

The 'poor' issues are due to improper taxation and government spending, not income.

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## stile99

> That looks like someone went and looked at glassdoor reviews and selected them. They couldn't even crop pictures correctly. I wouldn't put much stock into that list.


Braum's is listed as #11.  I put about as much credit to this list as I do LinkedIn's report that professionals are fleeing OKC based on the location listed on LinkedIn profiles.  It's a current fad to write clickbait BS like this.  It's also a current fad for HR departments to latch onto them like a lamprey and use it in their list of benefits.  "We were listed #15 out of 17 of the best places to work!"  "OK, but do you offer dental insurance?"  "Oh, hell no...but we have a comfortable atmosphere!!!"

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## Bellaboo

> Unemployment rate is 4.2%, about as low as it can go.
> 
> The 'poor' issues are due to improper taxation and government spending, not income.


Another issue that IMO puts us in the 'poor' house is health insurance, or the lack thereof. I'm not an expert but this is what I think. Where the stats gets skewed is that if you are an Arapaho, you go to the C/A hospital / Dr's office in Clinton. No insurance needed. If you are Chickasaw, then you got to the Chickasaw hospital / DR's office in ADA, and so on. It's my belief that the high numbers counted for the uninsured, are Native Americans that use their local services. I've got a N.A. friend that told me he never paid a dime for his 3 kids when they were born. Would this scenario make our state 'poor' as in health coverage ?

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## d-usa

If you are poor, and have trouble with transportation to get to your free clinic, it isn’t really all that helpful.

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## Zuplar

What I find sad is the majority of that list is government. Let's be real, Tinker, all the universities, FAA...majority of jobs in this state are government. Then when you think about how regulated banks, healthcare, and utilities are, the government employees directly or indirectly the majority of people in this state. Considering how absolutely horrendous our state government especially is, it's not surprising when you see Oklahoma consistently in the lower level of most rankings.

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## jonny d

> What I find sad is the majority of that list is government. Let's be real, Tinker, all the universities, FAA...majority of jobs in this state are government. Then when you think about how regulated banks, healthcare, and utilities are, the government employees directly or indirectly the majority of people in this state. Considering how absolutely horrendous our state government especially is, it's not surprising when you see Oklahoma consistently in the lower level of most rankings.


By your logic, every job in America is a government job. Every industry has government regulation. Some more than you would think. In basically every state, under your logic, the majority of people are government employees.

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## Zuplar

> By your logic, every job in America is a government job. Every industry has government regulation. Some more than you would think. In basically every state, under your logic, the majority of people are government employees.


by my logic, lol.

I'm fairly certain that banks, healthcare, and utilities are leaps and bounds more regulated than Walmart.

As far as banking is concerned, since I do work in that industry, banks are considered a government contract, by definition. Any industry that is insured by the government, is considered a government contract. Since I'm guessing every bank out there is FDIC insured, that qualifies.

The government tells banks what they can and can't do in every_single_aspect of business. From how many loans we can make, to who we have to serve, to how much we can charge, how often we can charge, how new our computers have to be, how often we have to be open, and I could go on and on. The government runs the show 100% when it comes to banking. Sure the day to day may be ran by a small family, but the government has the ultimate say in everything. So yeah, we're government.

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## AP

^That is the worst take of all time.

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## Zuplar

> ^That is the worst take of all time.


This is taken directly from the US Labor Department. Pay special attention to the last line. Sorry, but you are 100% wrong.

_Is a financial institution that is covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or the National Credit Union Association (NCUA) with deposit insurance subject to the Affirmative Action Program (AAP) requirements under Executive Order 11246, as amended, the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA), as amended, 38 U.S.C. 4212 and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 503), as amended?

Yes. Financial institutions with federal share and deposit insurance are considered to be government contractors within the meaning of the regulations implementing Executive Order 11246, as amended, the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA), as amended, 38 U.S.C. 4212 and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 503), as amended. These three programs enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) require equal employment opportunity by government contractors.

The implementing regulations for Executive Order 11246 at 41 CFR 601.3 have consistently defined a government contract as any agreement or agreement modification between any contracting agency and any person for the purchase, sale or use of personal property or nonpersonal services. The term nonpersonal services includes, but is not limited to, the following services: utilities, construction, transportation, research, insurance, and fund depository. This definition thus explicitly includes agreements for insurance.

The implementing regulations for VEVRAA and Section 503, found at 41 CFR 60250.2, 60300.2 and 60741.2, respectively, also define a government contract as any agreement or agreement modification between any contracting agency and any person for the purchase, sale or use of personal property or nonpersonal services. Like the Executive Order regulations, these regulations also state that the term nonpersonal services includes, but is not limited to the following services: utilities, construction, transportation, research, insurance, and fund depository. Therefore, financial institutions with federal share and deposit insurance are considered to be government contractors._


Link for reference:
https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compl...qs/juristn.htm

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## AP

So by that definition Boeing is the government. Come on. You're being ridiculous.

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## stile99

Well, Boeing did just ask the government to tax a competitor at ridiculous rates so they wouldn't have to actually compete, and the government caved faster than a mantis shrimp's fighting claw.  And it looks like Zuplar isn't posting opinion, so.  Not really the hill I would choose to die on.

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## AP

Zuplar is posting an opinion. His opinion is that if you are a government contractor, you are the government. That is not accurate. I also work in the banking industry. We have regulations and government insurance too, but he's trying to tell me that TFCU is essentially a government operation. GTFO

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## AP

The only fact that he posted is that if you have federal share or deposit insurance, then you are considered a government contractor. Being a government contractor in no way makes you the government. He's trying to convince you that the government employs a majority of people in the state because of government contracts. That's asinine.

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## Zuplar

> So by that definition Boeing is the government. Come on. You're being ridiculous.


lol. 

I can tell you get worked up real easy. Do me a favor do what I did to you a long time ago after something you said that was just off the wall, and add me to your ignore list.

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## d-usa

Today I learned that Mercy/Integris/Saints/Etc is essentially government run healthcare because of regulations.

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## AP

Today I learned I was on someone's ignore list. That's awesome.

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## StuckInTheCapitol825

\_(ツ)_/

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## dcsooner

> So by that definition Boeing is the government. Come on. You're being ridiculous.


BOEING is not government, however, their presence in OKC is directly a result of Tinker AFB Maintenance which is Government/Military.  The point is OKC lacks any signiicant private sector manufacturing or technical job sources outside of O&G.  OKC has back office/ support companies but has a dearth of high paying manufactuing jobs. Many OKC residents lack significant disposable income due to low salaries. OKC tax base is hampared by low property appreciation hence the need to tax people via initiatives to pay for infrastructure sustainment and/or improvement. Somewhere it was mentioned on this board that street lights are out all over the city. I will continue to say the State and the City lack competent leaders with a vision for improving the social and economic lives of its citizens, but you get what you vote for.

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## okccowan

I don't know which thread to put this in, but is the State or City or Chamber doing anything to try to get the new Tesla Cybertruck gigafactory? Elon Musk wants it in the middle of the country, I believe, so we should at least by trying to get it here.

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## Southsider2

> I don't know which thread to put this in, but is the State or City or Chamber doing anything to try to get the new Tesla Cybertruck gigafactory? Elon Musk wants it in the middle of the country, I believe, so we should at least by trying to get it here.


Someone at the state level (OK) engaged the tweet of his regarding the gigafactory and essentially said "let's talk". I know absolutely nothing about the requirements for the gigafactory but I have read a lot of rumors about it going to Austin.

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