New position: Group president, central region, Kforce, Tampa. Previous position: Vice president, business development, Kforce, Tampa
By FRED W. WRIGHT JR.
Published August 23, 2004
Matching people and places, finding the right personnel for the right client, provides Randy Marmon with the patience and stamina to be on the road three days a week.
As newly appointed group president for Kforce's central region, Marmon must oversee 17 offices in 10 states, not including Florida. He continues to focus "on growth and profitability as well as develop new business and a new customer base," he said.
Marmon has always liked being in contact with customers. "I grew up on the sales side of this business," he said, "so for me, being with the customers is where it's at."
Marmon said America's work force is experiencing a shift. "The reality is that over the years, we've seen a vast migration of people who are working more as consultants and on projects that are shorter-term in nature and not permanent," he said. "That's intriguing to me - the work being performed and how it's being accomplished."
He said he enjoys sitting down with client organizations and helping to determine their strategic and staffing needs. "Staff augmentation . . . is the most exciting thing. It's the underlying reason I like the business," he said. "We impact people's lives as an organization, helping shape their careers and helping their organizations."
Kforce clients are "typically Fortune 1000 organizations as well as a number of professional services firms," he said. "Each market dynamic is different."
Working from Kforce's headquarters in Tampa to oversee a region that includes states in the Midwest and South makes sense, he said, because it's easy to commute from the bay area and it keeps him in touch with the company's executives.
A native of Atlanta, Marmon attended the University of Central Florida in Orlando, earning a bachelor's degree in accounting in 1986. He returned to Atlanta, where he worked as an accountant for an accounting firm and a temporary staffing company before joining what was then Romac & Associates in 1992, in sales.
Romac later became Kforce, which provides permanent and temporary staffing in a variety of skill areas. Kforce has more than 80 offices and annual revenues of nearly $700-million.
Marmon relocated to Tampa in 2000 with Kforce, as vice president of business development and alliances.
"I love the pace of this business," he said. "It's extremely fast. The pace is highly frenetic and electric."
Marmon estimated that Kforce might have as many as 10,000 people "working for us on any given day." This would include many temporary hires who might be just joining or just leaving a position, he said.
"The electricity comes when you're sitting there talking to an organization that needs to hire 40 people immediately," he said. "It's like that all day."
Marmon said his typical workday, as a result, is at least 12 hours long. "If there were more hours in a day, I would really enjoy that," he said.
Marmon, 41, and his wife, Carol, live in Tampa. They are working on a "top 20 list of vacations we want to hit," he said. So far this year, they've visited Las Vegas, Alaska and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Next year, England and France. "After that, we may need to make a new list," Marmon said.
