Native American Entrepreneur Buys Staffing Company Franchise

Bizjournals.com:

An Albuquerque entrepreneur has purchased the local franchise of the national Spherion Corp. recruiting and staffing company.

Derrick J. Lente, who has roots in Sandia and Isleta pueblos, acquired Spherion‘s corporate-owned branch in Albuquerque, which has been operating here since 1998. The deal gives Lente ownership of the Albuquerque market and marketing rights for Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia counties.

Spherion is based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and has 700 offices in North America. It has 300,000 employees and more than 8,000 clients – 90% of them on the Fortune 100 list. Its annual revenues are $2 billion.

Cheryl Hilpert, spokeswoman with Spherion, said the company likes to have local owners in its smaller, niche markets.

‘They want a local focus and they want someone who knows the local community and is more engaged and has a sense of what is going on in that specific community,’ she said.

Spherion serves a number of industries, including aerospace and defense, auto manufacturing, banking, biotechnology, education and financial services. Hilpert said Spherion does not reveal the names of clients.