FARGO - A company that employs North Dakotans to take fast food orders from drive-up lanes has the potential to hire "thousands and thousands of people," its chief executive officer says.

About 170 people, most of them from rural areas, are currently taking orders from about 50 McDonald's restaurants throughout the country, said John Jasper, the chief executive officer of Illinois-based Verety LLC.

"It's going to take a few years, but this could be a big income source for people in the rural communities," said Jasper, whose company was honored Tuesday at the Great Plains Technology Conference.

Verety, headquartered in Oak Brook, Ill., has 600 employees in eight locations. Its order-taking training centers are in Fessenden, Rugby, Steel and Wishek. After about two weeks of instruction, employees are sent home with laptops to begin taking orders from long distance customers from Florida to Washington state.

"They're talking to moms and grandmoms working out of their basements in rural North Dakota," Jasper said. "That's a pretty unique application."

Employees get free use of the computer and broadband coverage, as well as some medical and health benefits. Some have questioned the payscale, which Jasper refuses to discuss. "I would rather not answer that," he said when asked.

Workers say that being close to home helps them save on gasoline and commuting time, and they like the flexible hours.

Jasper said the concept started as an experiment in 2004 by SEI, Verety's sister company, which had call centers in Fargo and Grand Forks. The operation eventually became a separate entity.

A stable work force and surprisingly effective broadband coverage made North Dakota a good site, Jasper said. About 75 percent of people who apply with the company have Internet capability, Jasper said.

"Broadband is always an issue, but it's not a huge issue," Jasper said. "We would love to see the broadband issue continue to increase, but we have been pleasantly surprised."

Outsourcing the order taking should allow restaurants to serve more customers at a faster rate because it "relieves pressure inside the restaurant," Jasper said.

The company is a "great business success story," Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said at Tuesday's conference.

"Verety has tapped into North Dakota's talented work force and growing high-tech sector," Dorgan said.