Immigrant entrepreneur beats the odds, aims to produce 1,000 jobs in the next three years

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) July 21, 2010 --

NEW YORK, NY- Jobs are very scarce these days. As of early this year, at least 7 million jobs have been shed off from the workforce and many experts say that a lot of these may never be recouped. Baffled economists and policymakers are hard at work devising ways to address this gargantuan predicament. One solution proposed is the Startup Visa Act of 2010, also known as the Kerry-Lugar bill. It’s a legislation that if enacted into law will provide visas for immigrant entrepreneurs who have received at least $250,000 in funding from an American investor to launch a business and create jobs. If this bill passes the House and Senate, it can create 5,000 new companies this year – all potential employers.

Immigrant entrepreneurs have always been job creators. In Inc. magazine’s July 2010 cover story, the magazine reported a study by the University of California Berkeley and Duke University where they found out that there is at least one immigrant founder in one out of four engineering and technology companies in the United States formed between 1995-2005. In total, these companies have generated $52 billion in 2005 sales and almost 450,000 jobs.

Many reports have shown that immigrants have created jobs (through small businesses), provided new skills and brought innovation that has become essential, if not foundational, to the US economy. Stories like these are concretized by the example of JUNO Healthcare, a company founded by Filipino immigrant businessman Dante Raul “DR” Teodoro. At the height of the recession, the company was hiring support staff and healthcare workers, providing needed jobs in a dry and struggling economy.

While most companies were busy laying-off people, cutting down costs and minimizing expenses, DR Teodoro’s company was moving to a larger territory, taking on greater risks along the way. During the height of the economic downturn, he moved his company, which was based in Elmhurst, Queens, to a prime Fifth Avenue location in Manhattan. “Our goal is to be able to deploy 1,000 healthcare professionals in the next three years,” DR shares, “we’re on track and in full force in accomplishing our target to provide long-term, sustainable and customer-centric value to our employees and client facilities.” The company’s hiring for its client facilities and support staff has been aggressive, with consistent deployments since the beginning of this year and new job openings almost every week.

An Ivy League-trained executive from Harvard Business School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, DR Teodoro’s company is focused on creating value, for its employees, healthcare professionals and clients. It was during a series of intensive planning and brainstorming with JUNO’s management with DR where the company created its ambitious goal. The company plans to fulfill its objective by becoming the first choice healthcare staffing in both the East and West Coast, competing head-on not with size or resources but with the power of personalized-special relationships.

JUNO began in 2001 as a healthcare company focused on providing opportunities for foreign healthcare professionals. It was one of the companies that have been instrumental in alleviating the nursing shortage of the 1990s. It has been serving facilities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in the East Coast and California and Arizona in the West Coast. The demand for nurses and physical therapists during that period was very strong and the company experienced tremendous growth which it reinvested to its marketing and operations, hiring more staff along the way and enabling it to develop a recognizable brand in the industry. The speed, at which it grew, by leaps in bounds, was honored by Entrepreneur Magazine, listing it as one of the 100 fastest growing companies in America in 2008. Individuals that JUNO has given jobs to most recently are US permanent residents and American citizens.

As the immigration debate heats up and as more solutions are proposed on how to restore America’s economy and its leadership in global markets, it will be good to remember the very reason that has made America what it is today. This country’s marketplace is filled with people hailed from different cultures and backgrounds, coming here not only to live off the new land’s resources, but provide opportunities for its people as well.

economy     entrepreneur     Filipino-American