The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UP CLOSE Background checks firm’s forte
Everifile used by some 6,000 clients. Company does about 500,000 checks in a year.
Q: What services does eVerifile provide? A: We are focused on safety and security, and do background checks and vendor verification. We check on what’s in public records, a DUI, a felony. We partner with companies that have automated systems. We also have people who make calls when it can’t be done through automation. Ninety percent of what we do is done in an automated fashion.
Q: How many people
Are you who you say you are?
Mark Wilson’s company says it will find out.
Wilson, 52, is CEO of Atlanta-based eVerifile, which investigates job applicants. The privately held company, with annual revenue of about $13 million, specializes in fast, Web-powered employee screening for some 6,000 clients.
Wilson’s partners include Magic Johnson Enterprises and Frontier Capital. Before acquiring eVerifile earlier this year, Wilson sold Ryla Teleservices, a provider of call center services, which he said he started in his basement before it grew to $100 million in revenue. do you check a year? A: We do about half a million. Q: How many employees do you have? A: We have 50 employees in the Atlanta headquarters and we will have between 20 to 30 additional employees more when we open our new office in Sacramento. Q: When did you acquire eVerifile? A: We acquired eVerifile in January 2012 for an amount we can’t disclose. Our investment partners included Frontier Capital, the Yucaipa Companies, Magic Johnson Enterprises and Plexus Capital. We were founded in 1999. Q: What about eVerifile attracted you? A: The existing client base of over 3,500 active customers. Q: What types of businesses do you work for? A: Railroads, utilities, consumer packaged goods, gaming. We have done quite a bit with the gaming industry. Q: Are bus companies clients? A: Yes. The American Bus Association. They are a membership organization, and we run their background checks. We also do this for major railroad companies. We actually badge people to be able to go on property of railroads. The need for this was borne out of Homeland Security, which wanted a regulated industry to shore up what they do for safety and security. We check out people for any number of companies that have the need to service a railroad. Q: How do you look for potential terrorists? A: There is a government database that has a list of folks that has to do with terrorism. That is accessed and checked. With respect to the terrorism threat, we have a new cat- egory we are focused on — sports venues and stadiums. We partner with the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security. Q: Why? A: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security ranks stadium attacks as one of the 12 most devastating possible acts of terrorism. We have a pilot program with five universities where we are testing backgrounds, people who work at stadiums the concession and ticket takers. The schools are Texas A&M, Michigan State, Ohio State, Southern Miss and Penn State. The program will create a risk management standard for major collegiate and professional venues to increase safety for the thousands of sports and entertainment fans who attend events each year. Q: Can you get all you need online? A: We do have direct electronic data connections in some county jurisdictions. However, we also leverage third party resources that actually go into courts and collect data that is not online. Q: What kind of growth are you expecting? A: We expect to significantly grow our company over the next three to five years based on the investments we are making in our people, processes and technology. The execution of our strategic plan will result in growing our top line revenue to over $50 million in the next five years. Our workforce will grow to over 200 employees to support this expected growth.
The jobs that will need to be filled are in the areas of IT, customer service and account management. We want to maximize the potential with our existing client base, while expanding market share. Q: You provide companies access to databases on criminal records. Can’t they get that themselves? A: It would be very challenging for companies that don’t specialize in providing background screening services to do what we do. We have built the infrastructure. We have a network over 3,000 contractors who personally collect court data from the over 3,400 counties in the U.S. Our processes adhere to the rigorous rules put forth by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which govern our industry. Q: What is Magic Johnson’s role with the company? A: We are honored to have the support of Magic Johnson Enterprises as an investor in our business, as well as being a supporter and adviser to our management team. Q: Do you have any plans to go public? A: No.