On a recent morning, Byron White wore to work dark green slacks, a rumpled blue shirt and a stylish green necktie. Hardly the typical uniform of a graduate of the London School of Economics, which White attended.
Freelance Access, Inc., the company White founded three years ago, also occupies artsy office space, with teal and black accents, in an old brick building just across the Fort Point Channel from South Station. Hardly the typical headquarters of a business that saw revenue grow to $1.2 million in 1994 from $60,000 just three years ago. This year, revenue is expected to top $3 million, and the firm is eyeing a national expansion.
White, 32 founded Freelance Access after a bout with cancer. He attribute�s his company�s success, in part, to a near-fanatical emphasis on providing the right advertising industry freelancers to companies who need them. Run more like a talent agency than a temporary help service, Freelance Access employs 11 people and draws from a pool of more than 1,000 Boston-area graphic artists and copy writers and places 50 to 100 assignments every day.
The company, which is aggressively tapping into the craze over computer graphics, recruits �talent,� as White calls artists, through advertisements. Graphic designers and other advertising workers are then invited into the company�s offices to undergo a sort of electronic inquisition.
Potential members must complete a 52-screen computerized questionnaire about their experience and areas of expertise. Then each graphics artist is put in one of nine professional categories and tested for technical proficiency.
Eventually, a worker�s resume, a summary of work skills and past work samples are entered into the firm�s computers. Freelance Access representatives then show the information to client companies needing help.
With that information in hand, White said, �We work with clients to match the skill level they demand with a price they can afford.� He calls the process a �scientific method for matchmaking.�
White attributes his company�s success to a growing market in general for temporary professional help.
�Freelancing is becoming not only accepted, but desired,� he said. And with the surge in graphic arts companies using Apple Macintosh-based computer systems, �it�s becoming less important where the work is done and more important� that it be high quality.
John Chuang, president of MacTemps, a Cambridge-based competitor, agrees.
He said the temporary help industry is growing at 25 percent a year. Companies want to avoid the fixed costs associated with adding employees, while workers like the flexibility of freelancing, he said.
Chuang, whose company grossed $41 million in 1994, offers a broad variety of computer-literate temporary workers, but Freelance Access focuses on the advertising industry.
Freelance Access gets from 25 percent to 32 percent of a worker�s hourly pay, depending on which several payment options the artist chooses. Fees generally fall between $15 and $50 per hour, but some can run as high as $100.
Freelance Access�s business is going so well that it plans to begin similar operations in New York City in about a month.
White has already signed a lease for 4,000 square feet of office space in midtown Manhattan, but he first needs to have some 300 to 400 available workers before he can begin.
�That really reflects my personal business style of wanting to be ready for the market before I can attack the market,� he said, adding that �Manhattan is very hot right now� in the computerized graphics world.
In a play on the name of California�s Silicon Valley, the graphics world is calling midtown Manhattan �Silicon Alley� because of its emergence as a center for so-called �new media� � or computerized art, White said.
New media includes everything from three-dimensional computer graphics to the �home pages� that serve as front doors on the Internet�s World Wide Web to CD-ROM and digital sound generation.
Besides opening in New York, White is also seeking venture capital to open offices in nine more cities over the next 18 months; among them are San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, and Washington D.C.
He acknowledges that keeping up with technology is probably the greatest challenge for his firm. �Success in this business is dependent on technical proficiency,� he said.
It also takes hard work � 60 to 80 hours a week for White. As demanding as it is, White said he�s just grateful to have had the opportunity to do it.
Ever since graduation from the London School of Economics in 1986, White knew he wanted to go into business for himself, but he initially had no money and no qualifications for a business loan.
Saying he�s always been attracted to graphic design, White held various jobs in sales and marketing at Hill Holiday, Franklin Graphics, Foster Design and Benes Communications while keeping his entrepreneurial dream alive.
As it turned out, something he was totally unprepared for gave him the courage and the opportunity to branch out on his own: In 1992 he was diagnosed with have testicular cancer. Three months later he started Freelance Access.
White�s not shy when it comes to talking about his illness. �I want to become the Magic Johnson of testicular cancer,� he said, referring to the HIV-positive former Los Angeles Laker basketball star who now crusades on behalf of AIDS awareness and prevention programs.
White�s company now hosts an annual golf tournament to raise money for the Jimmy Fund the famous cancer research fund run by Boston�s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
As Freelance Access got off the ground and White was forced to deal with his illness, his wife Nancy, and institutional money manager, had to pay the bills.
Now White�s cancer is in remission, Nancy is awaiting birth of the couple�s first child and Freelance Access is about to embark on what White calls a �very aggressive� expansion. Besides opening new office across the nation, he also hopes to open offices overseas in the next three to five years.