The Journal Record

Ken Novotny has learned that being able to recruit the right person for a job is just as valuable as producing the worker himself.

“I’m surprised at the number of corporations that can’t find talented workers,” said Novotny, chief executive of Consulting Services Inc. “Other companies tell us, ‘We want people like you’re getting.’ Well, there’s a cost for that. So we’re finding out that the recruitment division is doing as well as, if not better than, the core contract services division.”

CSI provides highly skilled workers in areas of medical treatment support and information technology for clients such as Northrop Grumman, Indian Health Services, Goodrich Aerospace and the Department of Defense at Tinker Air Fore Base and the Federal Aviation Administration. Operations Manager Dave Mitchell referred to such employees as “purple squirrels,” nearly impossible-to-find candidates with the perfect set of skills to match a niche job.

The company began in 2002 at the Emerging Technology Entrepreneurial Center business incubator in Norman. The office space and tax cuts were invaluable to getting the company started, he said. Since then, CSI has doubled its annual revenues and has grown to more than 50 employees.

The company underwent big changes at the end of 2007 when the office was moved to Bricktown at the heart of Oklahoma City and a second office was opened in Albany, N.Y., to capture part of the vast IT market there. CSI is looking to open another operating location this year in Dayton, Ohio, to support Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Novotny said the company is looking to double its annual revenues again.

The key has been splitting CSI’s services into a second division for recruitment last year, he said.

“There are a lot of companies that bid against us for contracts, and sometimes even when they win, they end up putting our people to work,” Novotny said. “That doesn’t make any sense, but whatever.”

Mitchell said the company started with about $30,000 cash and a $100,000 line of credit. CSI recently expanded its available line of debt through First American Bank in Norman to fulfill contracts of as much as $1 million.

Novotny has no plans to grow CSI at the cost of losing ownership. “I like my business; I don’t want to make it someone else’s. So we’re really not in the market for venture capitalists,” he said. 

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