North shore entrepreneurs cash in on need for security, er, staffing services

A MANDEVEILLE COMPANY that has been offering security and other service for special events for just a few months appears to have found a niche. Festival Event Staffing Service Inc., or FESS, is operated by several entrepreneurs who decided to build a business in their spare time.

Since August,

"We didn't plan on getting in and getting going this quick," says FESS President Paul Marsh.

But while the company's owners say they're offering a variety of needed services, state officials responsible for licensing providers of security - suggest FESS might not be meeting state expectations.

State law requires all businesses that market themselves as security companies or offer security services to apply for an operating license from the State Board of Private security Examiners in Baton Rouge and enroll employees in security training courses.

The owners of FESS say the state rules do not apply to "staffing services."

Marsh says that when a company hires FESS to do security, it gets employees on his staff who have been licensed by the state. He says he sends unlicensed workers only on jobs that do not require special security training.

That's not good enough, says Jane Ryland, office coordinator of the State Board of Private Security Examiners, Ryland says that if the company provides any form of security service, its entire staff must be certified.

FESS is not licensed as a security company, nor has it applied for licensure. To be eligible for the state's license, a security company must show proof that it has secured a minimum of $500,000 in general liability insurance and pay about $300 in application fees. Both armed and unarmed security staff are required to sit for a 16-hour training course. Armed guards must receive additional training.

"Some companies don't want to pay the fees, some don't want to take the time to fill out the forms and train their people and some just don't like the idea of being regulated by the state at all," she says.

Noncomplying companies are subject to a $500 fine, and upon discovery, are forced to either apply for a license or disband, says Ryland. The office is not investigating FESS Inc.

Although Marsh says FESS is "more of a security company than a staffing service." he says he has avoided registering with the state for fear of being labeled as a "security company." The title, he believes, would attract the unwanted business of clients seeking typical security guard assignments. such as policing parking lots and construction sites.

Calling the company a "staffing service allows FESS to be more selective with the jobs it chooses, he says. Plus, "when you put 'security in your title, your insurance goes sky-high." FESS has secured $1 million in general liability insurance as a staffing services company.

Still, FESS offers practically all the same events services that a licensed security company would offer - taking tickets. policing the parking lot, crowd control, stopping fencehoppers from entering. Ryland says that only licensed security companies can perform those services. Period.

Marsh and his two partners, Jose Rodriguez of New Orleans and John Beninate of Terrytown, first began shopping for insurance underwriters when the company went by another name: Festival Event Staffing and Security Inc. He and his partners later dropped "security" from their corporate name and replace it with a "staffing" after discovering the difficulty and cost of insuring a security company.

The state board learn of 10 to 12 noncomplying companies every year. Ryland says, reiteratign that the office doesn't know if FESS has done anything illegal.

Marsh won incorporation status and secured the name "FESS" in August, after explaining, through his lawyer, that the name was not a reference to Professor Longhair, the famed New Orleans piano player who answered to the same nickname and, coincidentally, owned two security companies.

Since them FESS' event staff has grown to almost 40 part-times. They're mostly individuals with full-time jobs, who just like to do something fun in their free time, says Marsh. The same is true of Marsh and his partner.

By day, Marsh works as a federal agent with the U.S. Department of the Interior: Rodriguez is a security officer with the New Orleans Taxicab Bureau: and Beninate runs his family's real estate management company and his own Mardi Gras parade production company. Because it is a side project for the trio. FESS may find it can weather the ebb and flow of th outdoor festival cycle. But security servies with full-time staffs find that going after special events is not always good business. "We don't do holiday specials," says Leonard Gurvich, owner of New Orleans Police Patrol Service Inc. He prefers finding long-term contracts for his full-time staff of armed and unarmed guards to renting out his people for special events,

Steady work means steady cash flow into the business and steady work for employees who are in high demand in a tigh job market, he says. When a security company hires only parttime employees for special events, it is more likely to get less experienced job hoppers, looking for quick cash, he adds. "You just can't get the quality," he says.

But because FESS hires friends of the partners - some of them school teachers, bankers and insurance agents - and pays higher hourly wages than competitors, employee quality has not been an issue, says Marsh.