One of the biggest concerns for companies is attracting and retaining talented employees in a nearly full-employment job market. It’s one of the reasons that Merit Resources Inc.’s recent strategic acquisition of Portico Staffing is a winning combination, said Merit Resources President and CEO Joel Duncan. 

Based in West Des Moines, Portico Staffing specializes in employment and staffing for a variety of fields, including accounting, finance, engineering and administrative. Portico Staffing retains its existing office space and continues operations there.

The 15-person company became part of Merit Resources, a professional employer organization (PEO) with 115 employees, on Dec. 28. Terms of the acquisition by the privately held company, which is a part of the INS Family of Companies, were not disclosed. 

Katie Roth, who last year was named by Business Record readers as the 2015 Woman Business Owner of the Year, launched Portico Staffing in 2005. She was formerly a partner and vice president of sales and marketing for Merit Resources, which became a client of her company after she launched her own business. 

Merit Resources, which is the state’s largest PEO, was acquired by Iowa Network Services Inc. in May 2013. 

The businesses in the INS Family of Companies also include Alliance Technologies Inc., an information technology company; Alliance Connect, a statewide competitive local exchange carrier; and Caleris, an Iowa-based company offering outsourced contact center services primarily to telecommunication and technology businesses. INS also is affiliated with iWireless, a statewide cellular partner with T-Mobile US Inc.

Roth said that after a decade of owning her own company, she was ready to turn over the administrative duties to Merit Resources to focus on what Portico does best. 

The transaction “just really made a lot of sense from a synergy point of view,” Roth said. “The one area of staffing we hadn’t done was IT, and Alliance (Technologies) does just IT, so it made a lot of sense to partner.” Additionally, Roth said, “The compliance part of health care is huge now; what Merit really brought to the table for me was economies of scale.” 

Duncan said he views the acquisition of Portico Staffing as one of the “rare occasions when in an acquisition you can align the needs of the company with the acquired company’s long-term plans.” 

“Our mantra has been making employment easier, and it gets a lot easier when you’ve got the right people,” he said. 

Each of the INS companies has aggressive growth goals, Duncan said, and Merit Resources anticipates year-over-year double-digit revenue growth for the next five years. 

“What we’re excited about for our future is giving employees more career development opportunities (through Portico),” Duncan said. “We’re encouraging cross-pollination across the organizations.” 

Roth said the prospects for growth for her business are enormous. 

“With the baby boomers retiring, there just are not enough Gen X and millennials, so the demand for our services in the next five or 10 years is just going to skyrocket,” she said. “You have to go out and find those people. Clients don’t have the time to go out and find those people.”