Local Business Looks Back Over Two Decades

Published by The Maneater ~ Aidian Holder                                                                                     October 15, 2002
           

Local Business Looks Back Over Two Decades
The temporary service agency Caroline & Company commemorates its history and looks to its future.

Caroline & Company, 311 South Providence Road, is celebrating 20 years of helping mid-Missouri residents and businesses hook up. 

Caroline Maher’s staffing service – she eschews the phrase “temporary service” – is now a prosperous small business.

But her entrepreneurial career didn’t begin in such plush surroundings.

“I started with one room and one typewriter.  I still have it,” Maher said, pointing to an electric typewriter.

The typewriter, too old to describe as merely obsolete, hovers somewhere between curio and antique and occupies a place in her office that can only be explained by Maher’s sentimental connection to it.

After beginning her business career as the owner, operator and sloe employer  of her freelance secretarial service, her operation started matching employees with clients who found themselves short of workers.

“It started as sort of a band-aid service,” Maher said.

The last 20 years have made Maher a prosperous businesswoman.  She’s moved Caroline &  Company from a one-room office to a comfortable suite, and she now employs four regular workers.

Every year, the five-person staff connects hundreds of employees with area businesses who need some extra help.  About a quarter of those employees are college students.

MU graduate Yvonne Carman, who had Maher place her in numerous jobs during college, said temporary work can be a good fit for student’s busy schedules.

“With Caroline, I never had to commit more than a week in advance,” Carman said.  “When finals or midterms came around, I wouldn’t work at all for two or three weeks.”

MU junior Michelle Rushing also has been satisfied with the work she secured through Caroline & Company.

“I’ve worked for law offices, insurance agencies, nonprofits,” Rushing said..  “It lets me see what kind of things I like, what kind of environments I work well in.”

Maher chose the right business at the right time.  In recent decades, the number of temporary workers has exploded, and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now more than 12 million temporary workers in America.

Maher said the goal of her company is to “find good jobs for good people.”

“Many of our clients use the process like a working interview,” she said.

Carman said she was fortunate to have worked for Caroline & Company while she was in school.

“Any time you can find a job that is as flexible as a student, you’re lucky,” Carman said.