Dennis Leininger experienced more than six boss changes in six years as his former company went from local to national and international ownership. This experience caused him and an employee who worked under him, Scot Dickerson, to want to start their own executive search firm. Mitch Johnson, who was looking to invest in a new business venture, provided the funding to get Capstone Search Group off the ground.

Four and a half years later, the company has grown from a two-person firm to 12 employees and the owners expect it to double in size in the next couple of years.

Capstone helps companies recruit new employees in insurance, manufacturing and engineering management and administrative positions. Its growth, Leininger said, is in part a result of greater demand, especially from insurance companies on the East and West coasts.

“When I started in the business way back when, it was still a necessary evil that a lot of companies needed to utilize a search firm service,” he said. “Towards the late 1980s, it evolved into ‘No, this is the way,’ because companies really realized people don’t stay with the same job or company forever, and you need the best talent to drive your organization, and I think the professionalism of our industry has really come along.”

The partners’ success also has led them to start DSM Holdings LLC, with the intention of investing in new development and business ventures. Capstone’s new office building, to be built in the Berkshire Commons Office Park in Clive, is DSM Holdings’ first project.

Plans for the one-story, 8,000-square-foot office building were approved by Clive’s Planning and Zoning Commission last week and are expected to go before the city council for approval on April 19. Capstone anticipates it will move from its location in West Des Moines into its new building early next year. It will occupy one half of the building and plans to rent the remaining space to one or two tenants.

The building also will have a partial basement for on-site data storage, which Leininger said is a key selling point. “Anyone who has office space knows (storage space) is a real problem,” he said.

Design plans call for the building’s exterior to feature natural materials, including limestone and brick. Because Leininger does not believe in cubicles, Capstone’s area will contain separate offices, each with an exterior window and higher interior window to bring natural light into the main area. A patio in back of the building will provide a lunch location and allow employees to enjoy the area’s wooded surroundings.

After DSM Holdings’ first project is under way, the partners plan to “look more aggressively at putting a plan together as far as what else we’re interested in,” Leininger said.

Leininger is the president of DSM Holdings and will divide his attention between DSM Holdings and Capstone, while Johnson remains focused on a separate company and Dickerson takes a more active role at Capstone.

DSM Holdings will consider new business opportunities as well as development projects, most likely on the west side of Greater Des Moines, the area the three partners are most familiar with.

“Mitch did not know anything about our industry,” Leininger said, “but he knew we did and had the same commitment and philosophy to ethics and business sense and passion. So the three of us are taking that same orientation and will find other people we can believe and invest in and help achieve their dream while building our own investment and business portfolio.”

For more information about Capstone, visit www.csgrecruiting.com.