Portland Firm Acquires StaffAmerica Temporary-Job Service
In a move that gives the company a greater presence in a rapidly growing and highly competitive industry, Barrett Business Services of Portland, Ore., has acquired StaffAmerica, a temporary staffing service with offices in Oxnard and Goleta.
StaffAmerica, founded in 1989 by husband and wife Philip and Pam Cox, recruits and hires temporary employees and makes them available to clients in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The 45-year-old Barrett organization provides similar services on a larger scale, with more than 30 offices in Washington, Idaho, Delaware, Maryland, California and Oregon.
Along with the acquisition, Barrett purchased Apama Inc., the Professional Employer Organization (PEO) owned by the Coxes.
Apama, like other PEOs, serves as the employer of record for client companies, handling payroll, employee benefits, personnel management, taxes, insurance and other administrative responsibilities. The arrangement is intended to cut down on the client’s administrative expenses and workload.
Officials at both Barrett and StaffAmerica expressed excitement over the potential of the transactions.
“The Camarillo-Oxnard-Ventura area is just exploding with growth as we see it, and Santa Barbara is a very tough market to break into unless you are there and know the people,” said Michael Barrett, vice president of business development for Barrett Business Services. “Strategically, this has moved us into Southern California and puts us right at the back door of L.A. County.”
Barrett, no relation to company founder Nancy Barrett, grew up in Simi Valley and has been familiar with StaffAmerica for some time, he said. He began working on a deal when he joined Barrett Business Services late last year.
“Barrett Business Services is a very progressive company and we are very enthused about its future,” Pam Cox said. “It’s such a win, win, win thing. Barrett is positioning themselves in California, and my husband and I plan basically to enjoy each other and enjoy our life.”
Philip Cox initially will help Barrett Business Services in its attempt to expand further into Southern California. Pam Cox will assist, as needed, with training and other aspects of the business, she said.
The purchase of StaffAmerica comes at a time when the temporary staffing business is on the rise nationally and locally.
According to the Virginia-based National Assn. of Professional Employer Organizations, the number of PEOs nationwide is growing at an annual rate of 30%.
At the same time, the National Assn. of Temporary and Staffing Services, also of Virginia, said temporary staffing businesses nationwide reported total revenues of $39.2 billion in 1995, up 12.9% from $34.7 billion in 1994. In 1993, the industry reported $28.4 billion in revenue. Average daily temporary employment was 2.2 million workers in 1995, up from 2 million in 1994, and 1.6 million in 1993.
Those in the staffing service industry say the rise has to do, largely, with the state of the economy.
“Because of economically tough times, employers have had to determine if they need full-time staff,” Pam Cox said. “Almost 100% of firms now understand what temporary help is and they now see it as a valuable management tool.”
Cox said temporary service is valuable in many industries, particularly those with fluctuating workloads.
“It’s extremely popular and cost-effective long-term when you have peaks and valleys in production,” she said. “Rather than have a full-time staff, we provide production labor or whatever is needed for the peak times. Then when the cycle is down, the business doesn’t have the overhead costs.”
Gold Coast Recycling of Ventura has been a StaffAmerica client for several years.
Mike Ewens, general manager of Gold Coast, said that at any given time at least a dozen employees are temporary hires. And, he said, the vast majority of the approximately 70 full-time employees at his business were originally hired as temporary employees from StaffAmerica.
“Normally all of the folks who work on the sorting line and in other places in the plant are hired through StaffAmerica,” Ewens said. “If they meet our training needs and fit in, after a period of 90 days to six months, they may be picked up permanently. We also keep a number of temporary employees on hand if there is a large crush of business. In the summertime, recycling seems to really pick up.”
Ewens said contracting with the employment service saves Gold Coast a lot of hiring hassles.
“StaffAmerica is able to do a good initial recruiting and screening and normally will select folks knowing they will meet our qualifications and are prepared to go to work for us,” he said. “We don’t have to do the recruiting and they draw from such a large pool, we can get very qualified individuals.”
StaffAmerica also handles payroll, workers’ compensation and employee benefits for the recycling operation. “It reduces our administrative workload,” Ewens said.
As the temporary service industry has become more successful, so too has it become more competitive.
“It’s competitive in every way you can think of,” Cox said. “Like anything else, once anyone understands the benefits, then a lot of people are going to jump in. There are very large [staffing] companies that are well-represented in the Ventura County market, and there are strong, independently owned businesses. But there is so much business in Ventura County there is a lot of potential for everyone.”
One of those larger employee service companies is Olsten Staffing Services, a division of the national Olsten Corp., which has offices in Ventura and Thousand Oaks.
“There’s fierce competition,” said Roger Ramsey, who with his wife, Linda, has been the Ventura County licensing representative for Olsten since 1984. “In the late ‘80s and the early ‘90s we saw a lot of our competitors close up shop. Now we are seeing more open again and expand in our market.”
Ramsey said the temporary staffing business is growing in Ventura County, but not quite as rapidly as it is nationwide.
“We’re coming out of the recession of the early ‘90s and the downturn of the defense industry,” he said. “A lot of our business had been defense-related.”
These days, he said, the telecommunications industry in Ventura County is creating a demand for temporary staffing.
“We saw a lot of businesses relocate out of the San Fernando Valley after the Northridge earthquake, and they have stayed here. We’ve seen a lot of companies doing well that are related to telecommunications,” Ramsey said. “They could be looking for production people, technical people, designers to help design a product. They could be calling us for contract managers, quality control, even engineers.”
Bank Pays Cash Dividend for 50th Straight Quarter
American Commercial Bank celebrated a golden anniversary of sorts last week, when it issued a cash dividend of 21 cents per share on its stock. The payment marked the 50th consecutive quarter the Ventura institution has passed on a dividend to its shareholders.
“Fifty consecutive dividends is pretty unique in community banking now,” said James Beeninga, president and chief executive of the three-branch institution. “We’ve paid dividends because we have had profits. We had some years that weren’t quite up to expectations, but we haven’t had down years like other banks have had.”
Beeninga credited his bank’s success over the 50-quarter, or 12 1/2-year, span in large part to a cautious loan philosophy.
“Other banks have gotten hurt with real estate and other speculative types of loans that we’ve stayed away from,” he said. “We’ve never been greedy in trying to grow our banks real fast. Other banks get into areas that they’re not familiar with and that can turn against you when the economy goes bad.”
Beeninga said a personal banking approach has also contributed to the bank’s consistent profitability. “We offer a lot of personal service so our customers stay loyal,” he said. “We have had the same employees in the same branches year after year after year.”
Pete Baptiste, a broker with the Edward D. Jones & Co. brokerage office in Ventura, said the dividend streak that American Commercial Bank has put together is rare among community banks.
“With the shake-up we’ve had in Southern California, with the real estate market and bad loans and that type of thing, a number of banking institutions have eliminated their dividends,” he said. “American Commercial is a very, very well run operation with a definite strong operating plan and a strong market in the community.”
Baptiste called American Commercial an exception to the rule when it comes to success in banking.
“There’s a view that to survive in the banking business you’ve got to be big. American Commercial has really gone against the grain,” he said. “They’ve survived, prospered and stayed in the community.”
