Serial entrepreneur Chuck Porcelli talks about the formation and development of his highly successful staffing companies.
Driving Directions:
DIRECTIONS: Take I-88 to Route 59, go North on Route 59 and turn right at first street (Westings Drive). From Westings, take an immediate right onto Calamos Court. Parking garage is on right. Go to City Gate Grill. Meeting room is down the steps below City Gate Grill.
Event Details
"Acres of Diamonds" is the title of a lecture developed by the founder of Temple University, Russell Conwell who delivered it over 6,000 times on the Chautauqua lecture circuit in the late 1800's, making enough money to finance the creation of Temple University. The lecture tells the story of Ali Hafed, a successful, Muslim Indian farmer who became obsessed with becoming very wealthy by finding a diamond mine. He sold everything he had and went in search of that diamond mine but was unsuccessful and died in poverty. Meanwhile the purchaser of his farm accidentally found a glimmering rock in a stream on the farm that turned out to be a diamond and led to the development of a very large diamond mine in Golconda, India. That new owner became a very wealthy man.
Current business news coverage seems to suggest that for the past few decades significant business opportunities lie primarily in the fields of health care, internet applications, portable, personal communications devices, or selling complex, new financial instruments to the unwary. Preferably, these business models would be protected by large moats of intellectual property protection and/or capital requirements combined with minimal need for employees. Millions of talented, ambitious young men have, therefore, steered their education, resources, time and careers into these business segments with the hope of making it really big in places like Silicon Valley much like miners rushed to the California gold fields back in "49.
Consequently, our December presenter for the Entrepreneurial Roundtable provides a particularly compelling story of success locally in an industry that has none of these characteristics – the staffing industry. No APP's, intellectual property protection, huge capital requirements, medical billings, or government incentives, but WITH huge numbers of those troublesome employees. Join us December 16 to learn from the experiences of Chuck Porcelli who will be telling us about how he found and developed his own "Acres of Diamonds".
About Chuck Porcelli and his companies:
Charles "Chuck" Porcelli is the CEO and Co-Owner of ASG Staffing, Inc. and Azimuth, LLC. With over 30 years of experience in the search and staffing industry, Chuck still enjoys helping his customers fill their staffing needs in this ever changing business landscape.
A lifelong Chicago native, Chuck has a Bachelor of Education Degree that he received at Miami University where he was a 2 year football letterman. He started his career in the search business after graduation at Chemical Personal Search, Inc. as a technical recruiter specializing in placing chemical engineers on a national level.
In 1987 he founded Advanced Search Group with Chuck Nystrom (his current business partner) and Terry Doyle. Over the next few years, this search firm located in Lombard, Illinois, employed 25 Recruiters handling 4 different verticals: Chemical Engineering, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, Laboratory and Production/Operations/Management. Because of his work in Production/Operations/Management, he began to get requests for contingent general labor, so in 1995, his wife Dagmar Porcelli joined the company to manage the growth of the temporary labor division, ASG Staffing, Inc. In 1999 Chuck Porcelli and Chuck Nystrom sold Advanced Search Group to Charlie Diana who still operates the business from Willowbrook.
ASG Staffing provides small to mid-sized accounts traditional temporary help solutions. Whether for a day or a week, one person or many, ASG is able to provide the best talent available for both short and long term assignments. ASG Staffing serves customers throughout Chicagoland out of their 5 locations: Bensenville, Bolingbrook, Aurora, Berwyn and Glendale Heights. In 2007 Dagmar Porcelli retired from the business when sales were at $27.5 million per year.
In 2009 business was again expanded as the needs of their customers grew and Chuck and Chuck started Azimuth, LLC. Azimuth is a full service human resource organization specializing in the role of complete management of contingent/contract or temp to hire staffing needs of client companies as well as direct hire solutions.
Between both companies, ASG Staffing, Inc. and Azimuth, LLC employ over 40 corporate employees and put over 6,000 W2 temporary employees to work in Chicago. This year, combined sales will exceed $55 million.
Chuck and his wife Dagmar reside in Oak Brook, Illinois and are the proud parents of three children. Chuck's hobbies include sports of all kinds and he is an avid golfer.
Professional Organizations include: Staffing Services of Illinois (Board Member), Illinois Staffing Association, NPA (Past Board Member), Technology Manufacturing Association, Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans (Past Executive Committee Member), Active Contributing Member Montini High School (varsity football coach 4 Years), Northwestern Grid Iron Network, Miami University Red/White Club and Miami University Alumni Association.
$15 for Booth Alumni and students before December 12. $20 after December 11.
$20 for the general public before December 12, $25 after Dec. 11
Program
6:30 PM-7:00 PM: Networking with light refreshments
7:00 PM-8:30 PM: Presentation and discussion