Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 14, 1995 TAG: 9501170052
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The Southern Personnel Services Inc. office is the first branch of a corporation that opened for business three years ago in Columbia, S.C. Betty M. Belcher, its president, said she expected her corporate headquarters to move to Pulaski in about two years.
``This is probably one of the fastest-growing businesses in the country today,'' she said, with companies down-sizing but sometimes needing more workers, and taking on temporary employees for specific tasks.
The Pulaski office will be headed by E. Pete Miller, vice president for Southern.
The office at 158 N. Washington Ave. will formally start taking applications next week, although some calls have already come in from people interested in jobs.
``We've taken some applications already,'' Miller said. ``But on Monday we hit the ground running.''
Southern offers employee testing and training programs, temporary and full-time employee placement and employee benefits.
It also does payroll and handles the administrative paperwork for companies seeking that service, Belcher said. ``And that's been something that's extremely helpful to small businesses that open up. Pulaski has had many small businesses open in its downtown in recent years.
Belcher, who has a background in personnel and management, and her husband, Sam, had seen the need for this kind of service in their area of South Carolina years ago. ``We just took the bull by the horns and did it,'' she said.
Miller, who is Belcher's brother, first came to Pulaski in 1972 as a U.S. Army recruiter and headed the recruiting station until 1976. His wife, Jeri, worked for the Pulaski-based Southwest Times for several years.
He retired from the Army in 1981, and the couple moved back to the Pulaski area. Miller worked as manufacturing manager at Jefferson Mills, then as a service center manager and sales representative for Preston Trucking Co. of Wytheville, and for almost three years as manager of the Thorn Spring Golf and Country Club in Pulaski.
He left that job last March. ``This opportunity started developing,'' he said, ``so I decided to take advantage of it,'' he said.
As for Belcher, ``This is where I'm going to spend the rest of my life," she said. "I love this area. I would venture to say that, within two years, the corporate headquarters will be moved here.''
She said other branches are tentatively planned for Tennessee and eastern Virginia during 1995.
by CNB