Janice Bryant Howroyd and … the next act for ACT-1: personnel services company has beaten the odds and made history along the way

Ebony, Nov, 2005 by Aldore Collier

WHEN Janice Bryant Howroyd began her personnel company in 1978, competitors, large and small, paid little or no attention. Her company was new, small and easily dismissed. "After all, I was just a nappy-headed girl from North Carolina," she recalls. "They saw mine as that cute little local, minority-, woman-owned company. Second-tier and a back-up vendor."

And that suited her just fine. She was patient and reasoned that she was learning the ropes while growing slowly. "There weren't very many women-led organizations," she says, "and we weren't seen as a threat."

Well, 27 years later, her company has grown exponentially and operates on a global level--while many of those early competitors who so cavalierly dismissed her are long gone.

The company, ACT-1 Personnel Services, has annual sales of more than $480 million and is believed to be the largest female-, minority-owned employment agency in the United States. The company, based in Torrance, Calif., has more than 400 employees and provides staffing, human resources and management solutions to numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Ford Motors, Coors, Cingular, the Gap, Sprint, Amgen and SunTrust Banks. Not surprisingly, she has plans to expand her client list.

In addition to temporary staffing, Howroyd's ACT-1 provides background screening services, travel services and Web-based technology that enables companies to keep track of all services vendors provide.

Howroyd, 52, attributes her success to perseverance and the mantra that she still repeats 27 years later. "I believe in keeping the humanity in human resources," she says. "I've invested back into the company, and I have not lived a bling-bling life. Also, many of those we compete against are publicly held companies that have to position themselves for shareholders."

Additionally, Howroyd prides herself on hiring topnotch employees. ACT-1 has eight members of her family, many of whom have engineering degrees. However, she quickly points out that no family members get a free pass or immediate positions. "Each of them has his or her own success before they come in. Nobody inherits a position in this company," she says.

Those are the tangible ingredients to which she attributes her success. There's another that she feels has prepared her for all the positives and negatives she has encountered. "Above all, I have stayed close to God in how I run this company," she says. "That means never compromising who we are."

Starting her own company was not even on Howroyd's radar when she went to Los Angeles in 1978 to visit her family. She ended up working as an assistant to her brother-in-law, Tom, who worked at Billboard magazine.

Her idea was that the job would be a temporary one, but her organizational skills were so impressive that she was repeatedly asked to stay. She took several part-time jobs and slowly realized that she was most adept at matching people with job openings.

Initially, her focus was on permanent placement. That changed when she was at a social function in the early 1980s and an official from a public utilities company asked if she did temporary staffing. "I said, 'I can do temporary staffing.' And I was asked if I could come out and talk about how I would approach that for a small project."

That project turned into many others, and she placed temporary workers for various companies in the Los Angeles area. Soon, she moved into San Francisco and Phoenix. "We made those moves by customer request," she explains. "We never went out to 'build it and they will come.'"

One of the places where the company has a presence is her hometown of Tarboro, N.C., where she grew up as one of 11 children. Howroyd, sitting in her expansive office, beams and becomes a bit misty-eyed when talking about her triumphant return to Carolina.

"When we returned to North Carolina I learned from my mother that the house that was used to open our business had been a house that she'd actually gone to sell peanuts to some ladies who lived there when she was a student," she says. "She was asked to go to the back door because as a young colored girl she wasn't to approach the front door."

As company officials and locals walked into the home, Howroyd says her mother sat there glowing as she greeted guests.

"I said, "Mama, you're just glowing.' And she explained that it was such a joy for her to be able to welcome people through the front door."

Howroyd is a graduate of North Carolina A&T University as are several of her family members. She is a tremendous booster of historically Black colleges and universities.

Actually, she is more than just a big booster. Recently, she made a pledge of $10 million to her alma mater. She wants others to support Black colleges and acknowledge that their graduates are every bit as good as those from primarily White universities.

"Some of these HBCUs graduate some of the best and brightest talent in this world, and I see it everywhere. So, I'm enthusiastic that we have graduates from these schools in our company."

In addition to North Carolina A&T, Howroyd has also donated $10 million to the University of Southern California. She wants to make a statement that she appreciates the university's commitment to inner-city Los Angeles. "I appreciate that it appreciates its urban location," she says.