Up Close and Personal with 
Personal Bio
Chris Hildreth, Founder of ESP was born and raised in Coral Gables, Florida. Upon graduating high school, Chris was selected as a Rotary Exchange Student to represent south Florida and lived in Sweden for a year. Feeling the need to stay connected to Sweden after his year abroad; Chris moved to Minnesota and attended Gustavus Adolphus College, graduating with a Bachelors of Art in Business Administration. Chris has 30 years in the computer industry holding several sales and management positions with Burroughs Corporation, NBI, Inc., Syntrex, Inc., and Equitrac Corporation. These career moves also brought Chris to Southern California in 1985. Twenty-five of those 30 years, Chris was providing technology solutions including word processing, networking, time and billing and cost recovery systems to the legal marketplace. Currently Chris is involved with all aspects of information technology placement in the Southern California legal marketplace and is a California Accredited Consultant (C.A.C.). Chris also serves on the board of directors for Child Guidance Center, a non-profit organization.
Company Profile
ESP Systems Professionals of Southern California, Inc., was founded by Chris in 1996 with his brother, Robert Hildreth, who at the time was running ESP Systems Professionals, Inc., in Minneapolis, MN. The company, originally called Electronic Systems Personnel, hence ESP, was founded in 1968 and was the leader in information systems placement in the Minneapolis marketplace. Following the business model of the Minnesota office, ESP California has successfully been placing technology staff for over 13 years. Initially, ESP California found success with the legal market and today exclusively provides information technology staffing for law firms. After serving the technology needs of law firms for 25 years, Chris feels his knowledge will allow ESP to provide law firm clients a more effective solution for technology staffing. Chris further believes by specializing in IT staffing, ESP can send fewer, but better, qualified resumes for their clients to review, thus saving the client valuable time while filling their open positions. ESP provides permanent, contract and temporary-to-permanent placement for all information technology positions including: CIO’s • Applications Support • IT Managers • Trainers • Network Administrators • Project Managers • Network Engineers • Analysts • Help Desk • Programmers • Desktop Support • Web Developers • PC Technicians • Litigation Support
What is the most important component of the Vendor-Client Relationship?
As with life, the most important component for any relationship is communication. When working with recruiters, you can help them and thus help yourself by providing timely feedback for resumes submitted or candidates interviewed. When we do not receive feedback, we make the assumption that you do not have a critical need and we redirect our efforts to other searches. In return, it is our duty to keep you informed of our progress and clearly communicate the status of the search. We have found that the better the communication during the search, the better the quality of candidates who are ultimately hired by our clients.
What Characteristic do you possess that helps you to be successful?
A “Big Smile.” While most of our work is done over the phone, we try to start and end every conversation with a smile. At ESP, we believe as long as we focus our efforts on your needs or the candidates’ needs, we will be successful. This approach also keeps us focused on building long-term relationships, not the short-term fee from a placement. It is easy to smile when your focus is on the relationship and on the long-term success for all parties.
What makes your company awesome?
ESP is a small company and because of this we can exercise great flexibility and creativity when conducting a search, making us an awesome vendor with which to partner. Additionally, we have a goal to set the standard for integrity, by which all professional service organizations are measured. g January, 2005
Greater Los Angeles Leadership Exchange - www.glaala.org |
