The Kforce Story: 50 Plus Years of Great People Delivering Great Results

An Update on Source Source Edp followed a path of gradual expansion and in 1969, changed its name again to Source Services Corporation anticipating the diversification of their placement business. The first computer-era recession hit in the early 1970s, slowing their expansion. By the late 1970s, however, the corporate office was moved to Palo Alto, California, and growth resumed as Source employed the concept of having smaller sub-offices connected to their branch offices. Source Finance was founded as a division of the company in 1973 in San Francisco. By November 1983, Source had grown to thirty-six branches with a total of sixty-eight office locations and Source Finance had grown to seventeen branches and thirty-two office locations. By 1987, Source Services Corporation had 120 non-franchised offices across the U.S. and Canada. Taking an entrepreneurial approach that contrasted with Romac’s more centralized franchise approach, Source’s 1987 report read: “Each division grows revenues and profits according to the dictates of its own people and markets. Source is a very pragmatic company; we pride ourselves on the diversity of style and approach among all employees.” Lehman Brothers’ report called the merger a “complementary union,” with Source’s focus on industries— primarily telecom—and Romac’s focus on technology platforms. Source’s origins were almost exclusively in information technology (data processing back then); Romac’s in finance and accounting. And while Romac made the shift to flexible staffing in the mid-1980s, Source didn’t move into full-scale flexible staffing until 1991. Years later, how the blending of the two companies is viewed depends on where one was at the time. Experientially, for most people on the Romac side of the equation, it was an acquisition. In strictly legal terms, it was a merger, a technicality that made the transaction palatable for those on the Source side. When the ink was dried and the dust settled, Romac’s leadership remained at the helm. Lehman Brothers’ February 2, 1998, report called Romac’s management team, “one of the strongest in the staffing business.” In financial- speak, it was described as “a pooling of interests transaction” with Romac as “the surviving firm.” Phil Bank, who started with Source in 1983 and is now Kforce’s senior market manager for Finance and Accounting in New York, regarded the move in a positive light as soon as he heard the announcement of the merger. “Romac didn’t have an office in New York or New Jersey so we figured it would pretty much be business as usual.” On the very practical side, Source had always operated as an employee-owned company so when Source went public in 1996, whatever privately owned equity a person held now became publicly traded stock. Now, their shares of Source stock became stock in Romac International. From Phil’s viewpoint, it was a “well-orchestrated business combination.”

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