Photo Caption: Jessica
Ollenburg, president and CEO of Human Resource Services, Inc., poses
with associates Nicole Winkler, Amy Tonn, Christa Schroeder, and Matt
Bare at their Waukesha office on Friday. Demand for the company’s
services is booming in Waukesha County, Ollenburg says.
(Editor’s
note: This is the first in a two-part series looking at the growth in
the business and professional services sector in
Waukesha County.
The series continues Tuesday.) September 2, 2006
By
LAWRENCE
SILVER
Freeman Staff
WAUKESHA
– Human Resource Services, Inc. President and CEO Jessica Ollenburg
pulled her company’s Milwaukee headquarters out to Waukesha in 2005 to
follow a growing market of customers.
Now Ollenburg said
HRS plans to double revenue by 2010 and has plans to go national next
year.
Ollenburg said
more employees will be needed to accomplish the firm’s goals.
“We moved because
of the growth of business in Waukesha County,” Ollenburg said. “We found
many of our clients were moving out to Waukesha County and we wanted a
point of distribution. But now we’re finding there is more demand on our
Waukesha (headquarters) than our Milwaukee office.”
While
manufacturing continues to represent the highest percentage of Waukesha
County workers, the professional and business services sector is proving
to represent a rapidly growing portion of the Waukesha County work
force.
Jeff Sachse, a
labor economist with the state Department of Workforce Development
stationed in Pewaukee, said the four-county area should expect 17
percent growth, or 9,500 jobs, over the next 10 years in the area of
business and professional services. That area includes Waukesha,
Milwaukee, Ozaukee, and Washington counties.
Bill Mitchell,
president of Pewaukee-based Waukesha County Economic Development Corp.,
said the percentage of workers in the business and professional services
field grew from 10.8 percent to 11.8 percent in Waukesha County over the
last four years.
“Out of 226,000
workers, that’s a big number,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said the
county’s largest sector of growth within the business and professional
services field was in finance, insurance and real estate.
“I think business
services is looking to expand to get closer to customer pockets,”
Mitchell said. “Also because there is less investment. There is no need
to buy equipment.”
Sachse said the
growth of business and professional services in Waukesha County is part
of a natural progression.
After
manufacturing and residential businesses started moving to the area in
the 1990s, he said, service firms were bound to follow.
“When you look at
this from an economic perspective, service industries’ growth is lagging
behind that of manufacturing and residential,” Sachse said. “It seems to
be a natural progression that they followed the other industries out of
Milwaukee.”
Anticipated growth
When Director of
Marketing Traci Catalano started to work at Waukesha-based R&R Insurance
Services Inc. six years ago, the company had 93 employees, she said.
Today the company
has 152 employees and like HRS, the company expects to double its
revenue by 2010.
Catalano said the
company’s growth is due to the increasing needs of its customers. People
rely on R&R Insurance to help them with planning their business, she
said.
“We know how to
apply the of a controller or a (chief financial officer) in niched areas
to dig down to the problem areas,” Catalano said. “We’re not just
insurance. We’re addressing safety issues that are affecting the price
of premiums.”
The growth in the
business and professional services industries relates directly to the
change of industry leaders, Ollenburg said.
Heads of
companies, especially young companies, want to spend more time
specializing in their focus areas, she said.
“When we started
in 1983, we were way too early,” Ollenburg said. “But now there is an
understanding of the value, as a financial resource, we can have on the
bottom line.”
Terry Jannsen,
president of Waukesha-based Jannsen and Co., an accounting and
consulting firm, said he sees no reason for growth in the business and
professional service industry to stop.
“I think it will
continue to grow because more and more people, especially the Gen-Xers,
realize the value of family time,” Jannsen said. “They are going to
continue to find ways to offload some of the work that is taxing to
them, so they can focus on what they do best.”
Slowing ‘brain
drain’
Sachse said county
officials should be enthused by the growth of business and professional
services in the county.
Companies that
support those services, he said, are attractive to people this area
sorely needs; college graduates.
The growth is an
incentive for young people to move out to the county and stay here,
Sachse said.
“Business services
is becoming more and more important to retain as many graduates as we
can,” Sachse said. “Our best hope is to develop the business and
professional services sector.”
Ollenburg said
college students are “beating down their doors” for jobs. Graduates know
there is room for growth in the industry, she said.
“With professional
and business services there is no limit on where your expertise can go,”
Ollenburg said. “It’s infinite.”
