New company offers the experts to provide short-term help

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (MCT) - A business venture worth pursuing should be able to withstand the misfortune of bad timing. That's why Mike Harris isn't fretting about the latest company he formed _ on the cusp of the steepest labor market decline in decades.

Patina Solutions is a professional services company that provides organizations with limited-term on-site expertise _ executives, managers, professionals and administrators _ from a stable of workers 50 years and older.

"The real story at Patina is the demographic that we're looking to deploy," said Harris, a serial entrepreneur who founded Patina with Debbie Seeger, the company's vice president of operations.

Patina is angling to be an agent for experienced professionals seeking more flexibility and control toward the end of their careers. The firm finds employers needing dependable fill-ins and negotiates the terms of the project _ hourly pay, schedule, duties _ on behalf of the professional and then bills enough to cover costs and profit.

"We're the employer," Seeger said.

The trouble is that in the six months since Harris and Seeger launched Patina, the economy has taken a nose dive. Instead of clamoring for reliable talent, employers have been ditching workers pell-mell, cutting nearly 3 million jobs since September.

"It'll get better," Harris said. "I'm an optimist. I don't think this is going to be as dire and as long as people say."

An old hand at starting up companies supplying talent and professional services, Harris downplays the downturn as a short-term bother. He tempers expectations for first-year revenue as he and Seeger try to prove the concept of the business. They're figuring on sales of $1.5 million to $2 million for 2009, with 20 to 25 professionals engaged in projects by the end of the year.

Currently, Patina has four professionals placed, with a couple of dozen possibilities in the pipeline.

"It's a bad time to start a business," Harris said. "It's almost a really good time to start a business, too, because you're really getting good talent."

Between the shaky job environment and deflated retirement funds, Patina already has attracted a portfolio of about 100 seasoned professionals willing to work limited engagements. The leading edge of the baby boom turns 63 this year, and the percentage of Americans 55 and older still working remains near record levels.

"There's more people out there at senior levels," Seeger said. "Now, there's somewhere for them to go."

Joy Wilkins, 54, heard about Patina through an outplacement program after a reorganization at JohnsonDiversey in Racine, Wis. A veteran human resources professional with experience as an organizational development consultant, Wilkins fit right in to a position at Helgesen, a Hartford-based hydraulics manufacturer.

Losing its only HR manager since the company began in 1977, Helgesen needed to hire a replacement as well as an outside consultant to evaluate its HR operations. Through Patina, Helgesen got Wilkins to run HR for three months while she also provided an assessment of the department.

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Wilkins considers Patina her business partner, and she's working with Seeger on the possibility of another customized project.

"The marketing is not my area of expertise. My field is my area of expertise," Wilkins said. "Patina does the marketing and the client relationships and makes those connections for me so I can leverage their strengths."

Patina has reunited Harris, 48, and Seeger, 49, who are just shy of the golden age they've set for their employment candidates. Harris hired Seeger in 1998 at AuditForce, the financial services firm he later renamed Jefferson Wells and sold to Manpower Inc. for $174 million in 2001.

Harris carries a faded AuditForce briefcase and a water bottle from Novo Group, the recruiting firm he co-founded in 2003. Patina operates from the West Allis offices of another Harris brainchild, Sagence, a technology consulting firm launched two weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks and another plunge in the economy.

So far, Harris has raised $1.7 million in angel investing for Patina, which opened a second office in Cleveland last month. In five years, he expects the company to have 25 offices generating $70 million in annual sales.

"This idea, just how it's resonating with clients, this just feels really good to me," Harris said. "People understand."

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© 2009, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.