PRESTON – Wholesale apparel supplier SanMar Corp. announced last week that it plans on hiring 150 sales account executives at its Preston facility in 2004. Company officials said it is likely 12 positions will be filled per month.

Account executive shifts are from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and starting pay is $12.50 an hour. The positions involve working with assigned accounts to develop and maintain professional partnership in order to generate increased activity and profits. Duties include answering incoming calls and e-mails, and assisting customers with questions regarding products.

“SanMar was founded in Seattle in 1971 as a T-shirt supplier and continues to prosper due to high-level customer service, innovative products and marketing tools for customer use,” said Lee Strom, senior marketing manager.

In 1971, Marty Lott began the company as a college project out of his father’s building in downtown Seattle. Three years later he hired his first employee, and in 1975 the company moved into a space in Pioneer Square.

By the mid ’80s, the company reached 50 employees and introduced its first catalog. In the 1990s, the company was taking 1,000 orders a day and still expanding.

Today SanMar is one of the largest imprintable sportswear suppliers in the United States and employs more than 600 people.

SanMar recently expanded further with new distribution centers in Jacksonville, Fla. and Dallas, Texas. SanMar operates three other distribution centers in Cincinnati, Ohio; Reno, Nev.; and Cranbury, N.J.

The company has more than 1.25-million square feet of distribution space and provides two-day shipping to 70 percent of the continental United States.

For employment information, interested applicants should visit www.sanmar.com or call (206) 727-3330.