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In the midst of a nationwide recession that brings nearly daily announcements of layoffs, it’s a challenge to find businesses that are still expanding in Central Iowa. However, two fast-growing operations in Greater Des Moines are capitalizing on trends within the health-care and information technology industries to continue to expand. And both companies say they anticipate further growth if the health-care reforms pledged by the Obama administration actually come about.

Waukee-based Ultimate Nursing Services of Iowa Inc. and Universal Pediatric Services Inc. have seen double-digit employment growth in each of the past several years, a pace that hasn’t slowed with the recession. The sister companies together employ more than 1,300 home-health-care nurses in six Midwestern states.

Another company, Buccaneer Computer Systems & Service Inc., launched a software development and informatics division in West Des Moines in June 2008 and hasn’t looked back. Based in Warrenton, Va., the computer software and services outsourcing company has hired nearly 60 information technology professionals over the past six months for its Iowa office, with good prospects for further expansion through government contracts.

Overall, the aging Baby Boomer generation means continued strength for the health-care industry, particularly for those providing outpatient-related services such as home-health companies, according to CareerBuilder.com. The U.S. health-care sector added 234,000 jobs in the latter half of 2008. And because of the rapid developments in technology, computer systems design and related services added 34,300 positions nationwide in 2008.

Specialized niches

Tucker Anderson, president of Ultimate Nursing and Universal Pediatric, said he’s scouting out new potential sites in Greater Des Moines to replace its 6,000-square-foot headquarters in Waukee. The companies’ managers and administrative staff only filled half the building when they moved in three years ago. Despite expanding the space by a third since then, now several people are sharing offices designed for one.

Ultimate Nursing, which operates four offices in Iowa, accounts for about two-thirds of the companies’ $13.5 million in total revenues. It provides both pediatric and adult home-health services throughout the state. Universal Pediatric, which has five offices, serves a highly specialized niche in home care for children with acute health needs in rural areas of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Nebraska.

“The interesting thing, I think, is that we’ve really grown a lot here in the state of Iowa (as compared with other, more populous states),” Anderson said, in part because the company is more focused on its home state. Both companies have been increasing their nursing staffs an average of 10 percent annually, a pace that’s been limited only by an ongoing shortage of qualified nurses, he said.

At Buccaneer, “leading the growth right now is government contracts,” said Vice President Mike Rozendaal, who heads the division. Last fall, Buccaneer landed three Medicare-related contracts that enabled it to hire 60 IT professionals ranging from high-level project managers to help-desk technicians. “We tailor our work force to what that contract may need, whether it’s a high-end data analyst or someone like a help-desk person who has a technical background,” he said.

The company received a $120,000 grant in June from the Iowa Department of Economic Development after pledging to create 30 jobs. The West Des Moines division currently occupies about two-thirds of a 25,000-square-foot space at the Regency West office park, and is actively seeking more contracts that could quickly enable it to fill the remainder of the leased space, Rozendaal said.

Anderson’s and Rozendaal’s companies both enjoy the relative security of providing services to government agencies or receiving federal funding. About 85 percent of Universal Pediatric’s funds come from Medicaid reimbursements for the severely disabled children its nurses care for in the patients’ homes. And all of Buccaneer’s contracts are with government agencies.

“You don’t realize how good you have it until everybody else starts feeling the recession,” Anderson said. “I think that’s what I hear from employees again and again: ‘I’m just so happy that I’m working in this industry.'” Universal Pediatric on average has been adding between two and 10 new patients each month, he said, and the company recently hired 13 additional nurses.

“Our offices are getting more applicants,” Anderson said. “Because of (the economy), you get some nurses who may have been retiring who find they can pick up a few shifts during a week.”

Rozendaal said Buccaneer is in the process of filling the remainder of the 60 positions it needs to fulfill its existing contracts, primarily in software quality testing. “We’ve had a lot of good candidates come in, and we’re just working through them,” he said. “And we have other bids out, and if you win something, you have to have folks on board the next day to fill those jobs. We’re constantly looking for new opportunities. It’s a fast pace; you wait and wait, and then when you hear, you have to be ready to go the next day.”

Fixing health care

Anderson said one of his biggest concerns is that his companies can’t afford to offer health insurance benefits to their employees, which makes them less competitive compared with hospital-based home-health providers. A few employees have had to leave the company for positions that offer coverage, particularly if a spouse who had coverage lost his or her job, he said.

Both executives said the Obama administration’s goal of providing better health-care coverage is likely to help their companies continue to grow over the next several years.

“I think that any time you get a Democrat in office like Obama, it can only be good for health care,” Anderson said. “I’m excited to see what can happen; I think it can only go up.” Anderson is also optimistic that state legislators will retain programs that enable his company’s patients to be cared for in their homes, which is far less costly than institutionalizing them.

Buccaneer, which now employs between 350 and 400 software professionals companywide, expects to reach 500 employees by next year. Rozendaal said Buccaneer intends to continue in its niche of government contract work, but plans to diversify the range of agencies for which it provides services.

“If there is more emphasis on health-care data and data management (by the Obama administration), it obviously puts us in a better position to do more work than before,” Rozendaal said. Cuts in that area are unlikely, he said. “If anything, they’re looking at having more IT within health care itself, and government wants to lead the charge on that.”