The Human Touch in a Digital World: Rich Smith’s Vision for Travel Nursing

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti:
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspote, and today’s guest is Rich Smith, co-founder and CMO of Atlas Med Staff. They are the largest veteran-owned traveling nurse company in the country. They operate from their corporate headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. They have a highly experienced internal staff.

that spans over four decades, staffing all nursing specialties. That experience has given them the unique ability to form a company based purely on their internal staff, their contracted nurses, and their client hospitals. They believe in a flat business model that rewards hard work, honesty, integrity, and dedication. They are the deep end of the pool, which is to say that this is not the place to play it safe or relax in an office.

This is the place to go if you want to do something big. Now, before we jump into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

Anthony Codispoti (07:50.661)
to find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the co-founder and CMO of Atlas Med Staff, Rich Smith. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Rich (08:03.916)
You made me sound very good. Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.

Anthony Codispoti (08:07.417)
All right, so let’s jump in. Before you started Atlas Med Staff, I see you had some successful sales roles for big companies like TD Ameritrade and giftcertificates.com, which had nothing to do with staffing or traveling nurses. I’m curious how this transition came about.

Rich (08:26.542)
It was a chance meeting honestly so okay, so you have to go all the way back to when my oldest daughter was three months old she got influenza a and I had to take her to the to the pediatric ER here in Omaha at the Children’s Hospital and I met a traveling nurse who took care of my took care of my daughter and honestly she probably took more care of me because I was I was

I mean, she was three months old. I was a new dad. I was frantic. I had no idea what to do. Couldn’t get her fever down. She wouldn’t stop crying. Like I didn’t understand what was going on. And she took more care of me, I think, than she did Riley. from that stuck with me. And I was at TD Ameritrade at the time. It was just Ameritrade back then. Good Lord. And my boss had my boss, the guy they brought in to run corporate sales, had left a year before to start a travel nurse organization here in Omaha.

And he called me and a few months later and he’s like, Hey, Rich, we’re doing this thing. It’s called travel nursing. I think you could do this. It’s kind of sales kind of, but I think you could do this. And that whole story and, and the woman that helped my daughter came flooding back to me. And I’m like, I, I think I have to, like, I think this is something that, that I’m destined to do. And it was weird at the time because

I loved Ameritrade. I love financial services. I love the world that we lived, that we worked in every day and the people I worked with, but this just seemed right. so there you go. So I went and did that and I haven’t looked back since. It’s been a crazy ride, but I love the healthcare professionals that we work with now and that I’ve worked with over the years and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Anthony Codispoti (10:15.885)
And so when your old boss called you to join the company, was he bringing you in as a partner? Was this Atlas Med Staff? Or was this a way stop before you started Atlas yourself?

Rich (10:26.444)
No, this was Medical Solutions. So Scott Anderson was his name. It was him and another partner. The other partner owned an IT company. Scott had purchased a very small per diem staffing company. Per diem is like daily staffing for hospitals, but then wanted to turn it into travel nursing. And if you know anything about Omaha, Omaha is the hub of travel nursing in the country. There’s a couple of us. It’s Cincinnati, Boca Raton, Florida, and San Diego outside of Omaha.

that are like the hubs for travel nursing. And so he was starting a travel nurse company. I started at Medical Solutions, my goodness, when they had like maybe five to 10 travelers total, like nurses working for them. They’re a multi-billion dollar agency now, but I started way back then.

Anthony Codispoti (11:15.826)
What is it about Omaha, Nebraska that has sort of attracted to these types of companies?

Rich (11:21.55)
There was a couple things one we were always telemarketing Omaha We don’t necessarily have an accent others may tell you differently But we don’t necessarily have an accent and so back before overseas telemarketing and that type of thing It was it was the Midwest it was Omaha and we had quite a few here the other Reason was there was a very large company here named Arias and Arias started off as an allied health company staffing

radiology and physical therapy and that type of thing, but then grew into travel nursing too. And so multiple offshoots from Arius happened over the years. In fact, my business partner, Steve Ryan, started at Arius like fresh out of the military. that’s how he eventually came to Medical Solutions and we met and then started, and then really grew Atlas together.

Anthony Codispoti (12:13.955)
And so is it Steve that has the military experience or both of you?

Rich (12:17.9)
No, just Steve. Yeah, just Steve. was military, desert. I always get this wrong. It’s desert shield or desert storm. And he always corrects me. It’s one of the two. yeah, but he worked on F-14s. I’ve heard the stories multiple times and he was all over the country. He was in Las Vegas and then he was in New York and Alaska. But yeah, was all over the country with the military.

Anthony Codispoti (12:26.996)
One of the two.

Rich (12:45.81)
And then once his time was up, the GI Bill was there. He went to college and then joined Arias as a recruiter.

Anthony Codispoti (12:53.561)
Well, hats off to Steve for his service. Thank you. So, okay, so you’re working for this company and then at some point you guys decide to start Atlas on your own. What was the thought process there?

Rich (13:04.172)
Yeah, it was, I, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this more later on, but I had helped grow Medical Solutions from almost nothing to over 500 traveling healthcare professionals working for them. And I was a client manager, I signed a number of their contracts, and I sometimes have a bigger mouth and I don’t know when to stop. And it’s it’s just who I am. And,

The company was going in a different direction than I really liked. And so I found my way out of the company. They terminated my employment. So I had the opportunity then to start Atlas. so that’s where that came from.

Anthony Codispoti (13:46.327)
Okay. And you said, you assume that we’ll talk more about it later. What’s the deeper sort of conversation to have there?

Rich (13:55.02)
That’s one of those vulnerable moments. when you, you know, can you admit like, got in my own way in so many different ways. Like I was my own worst enemy. But it turned into one of the best things that ever happened to me. It made me realize in my late 30s that, you know, I didn’t know it all, but I knew there was something better and I knew I could be something better.

Anthony Codispoti (13:57.125)
Mm.

Rich (14:23.094)
And that’s what kind of launched me into that. That and my very supportive wife who was very successful in her career that could support us during the startup for a number of years.

Anthony Codispoti (14:34.415)
Do you want to give more voice to what happened there at the previous employer that sort of led you to find your way out, as you put it?

Rich (14:42.434)
sure. Yeah. There were there’s two different ways our industry is going and it’s been that way for a number of years. And it’s it’s it’s very you’re either very, very automated and you you’re doing everything right here. You know, like Amazon, there’s there was a tech revolution happening even back then. Twelve years ago, there was a tech revolution happening in our industry. Or you could be even more hands on with it with the nurse, with or the tech.

or the traveler at the hospital is taking care of patients. And I always believed in that end user, that person. And they were going one way and I was going the other. And so that’s why it ended, quite honestly. Not to say that their method is wrong. There’s a lot of good companies out there that are very transactional that do that. I just believe there’s a better way. believe Target’s a great place to shop, but Macy’s is a great place to shop too. And I believe that’s…

That’s what we have created with Atlas is the Macy’s of travel health care.

Anthony Codispoti (15:46.165)
Macy’s just being a more upgraded experience for everybody involved.

Rich (15:49.868)
White glove, more hands-on, absolutely understanding your customer. If you’ve ever shopped for any kind of luxury item like that, Lexus or a luxury watch or something like that, there’s that higher level of service that you just come to expect. And that’s what we sell at Atlas, that higher level, that white glove service.

Anthony Codispoti (16:13.315)
white glove for both your nurses as well as for your clients.

Rich (16:18.892)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that’s one of the things that has kind of carried through with us. We don’t have our own and we can get into details. MSP, so managed service provider. Like I’m not, I’m not working directly with any one hospital system. I work with everyone. So I’m never going to lose a nurse to a different company that has that relationship because I have to pay them a percentage, but I’m going to be the very best that I possibly can when it comes to that nurse.

And when it comes to their compliance package, like how they look on paper and when we present them to the hospital, how they look to them.

Anthony Codispoti (16:57.605)
You know, Rich, I talk with a lot of founders who build up a pretty sizable and successful company and then remain involved. Most of them will retain the title of, you know, CEO or president. I see you list your title as CMO. Do you think of yourself as a marketer first?

Rich (17:15.522)
Absolutely, yeah. Steve is, the reason why Steve and I work together so well is because he has a marketing degree and I don’t have a degree. He is very comfortable in spreadsheets. I’m very comfortable doing stuff just like this. And it’s the exact opposite. I can’t stand spreadsheets. He does not like talking in front of people. Even if it’s like this, he doesn’t even wanna talk on the phone. Like if he’s…

He’s on vacation this week. We’ve talked maybe twice on the phone. We’ve texted a lot, but he’s not comfortable doing that. And so my role in the company is definitely outward facing. So everything that you see from Atlas, from our YouTube channel to our Facebook presence, to our LinkedIn presence, to our TikTok account is me. I’m the one driving that because that’s what the world sees. And that’s what I want.

I want to be able to control what they see about us and control that message.

Anthony Codispoti (18:15.525)
So I want to talk more about your approach to marketing, but I want to sort of dive into something that you just said there. said Steve has the marketing degree. You do not. So did you not go to college?

Rich (18:27.99)
I know I did not know Steve has a finance degree. I’m sorry. Yeah. Yeah, if I said more, I’m sorry. No, I did not. Here’s the thing. College was not for me. High school probably wasn’t even for me either. And you can kind of tell my backdrop here. I’m a nerd at heart and man, it was it was super hard in high school to be a nerd. But

Anthony Codispoti (18:30.021)
Okay. finance degree. Maybe I misheard that. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (18:41.498)
Mmm.

Anthony Codispoti (18:51.077)
Hmm

Rich (18:51.246)
My world was Batman and, you know, and Star Wars and Masters of the Universe. And so it was very difficult to fit in. then college, college just wasn’t for me because I’m not good at taking tests either. I’m really good one-on-one, but I’m not good at taking tests. And so, no, I do not have a college degree. I grew up in a small town, small town, Kansas. I’m a KU, I’m a Jayhawk.

heart. If I have one regret and I only have one, through everything, through a failed marriage and you you name it, I’m over 50 years old now, my one regret is I never went to the University of Kansas. that would be like it for me. But college wasn’t for me. I would have failed there too. And so no, I do not.

Anthony Codispoti (19:35.066)
Mm.

Anthony Codispoti (19:47.695)
So this is interesting. And I think this is a great story for other people to hear, know, folks who struggle in high school, maybe not super popular. You know, I heard you say you were a nerd back then. Being a nerd now has got a cool edge to it in a lot of cases.

Rich (20:04.496)
Right? Can you believe it? Like, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (20:07.277)
Back then, it was hard. Probably ostracized, a little bit isolated, right? Yeah, kind of hard to go to school each day. And now look at you. How many nurses do you have placed?

Rich (20:09.27)
No. Right.

Rich (20:14.208)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Rich (20:20.398)
We’re well over a thousand travelers nationwide, nursing and allied health both. Our allied health division has grown considerably this year. We’re very heavily heavy in nursing still though, but yeah, well over a thousand, you know, at the pandemic we were, we were close to 2000 working for us nationwide. So, and then internal staff of like 200 people too. it’s, it has come a long way.

Anthony Codispoti (20:45.829)
So walk me through what that bridge looked like, right? You didn’t go to college, struggled in high school. How do you get from there to where you are now?

Rich (20:55.95)
Yeah, so my dad was a college was a high school dropout. He but that dude worked harder than I think anybody I’ve ever seen in my entire life and and I learned a lot from him and I think the biggest takeaway from that is you You don’t have to have a college degree. You don’t have to have rich parents. You don’t have to You know all of those things that might might be you know The the the path to success if you outwork every one of them you will succeed

If you’re the first one there in the morning to turn the lights on and make coffee, and you’re the last one there to turn the lights off at the end of the day, and wash the coffee pot out, by the way, dude, that’s important too. That’s one of my biggest office pet peeves is, but I do that, that’s my job, even to this day. I’m the receptionist at our office. So we’re a multi-million dollar, 100 million, 200 million dollar company. I sit at the receptionist desk, and I always have, and there’s a reason for that because

If you see me doing that job every day, if you see me sweeping the floors, picking up trash, letting my best friend is the mailman and the FedEx guy and the UPS guy, like those, I like it when they come in every day. I want to talk to them. If you outwork everyone else, you will succeed. Everything else is completely irrelevant.

Anthony Codispoti (22:18.541)
I love it. The co-founder of a $200 million company is making coffee, cleaning out the coffee pot, and is the receptionist. This is bit of a different approach.

Rich (22:28.418)
Yep.

I unclogged a toilet at the office the other day, right? I mean, it wasn’t me, but no job is beneath you. If something needs to be done, you do it. That’s just, there’s nothing that you shouldn’t be doing.

Anthony Codispoti (22:44.109)
And you mentioned how your dad was a high school dropout, but the hardest worker you knew, I’m gonna guess that’s where that work ethic came from was watching him and having him instill those values in you.

Rich (22:55.31)
Yep, and he surrounded himself with people just like him. Small town Kansas, there’s a lot of people like that. There’s a lot of people with, I always say that my dad would be embarrassed of my desk hands. I have very soft desk hands. He would be embarrassed at the lack of calluses on my desk hands.

Anthony Codispoti (23:07.973)
you

Anthony Codispoti (23:14.957)
That’s funny. OK, so let’s go back to the marketing component and tell me about sort of the special approach that you take to marketing at Atlas.

Rich (23:24.974)
Yeah, I realized early on it was more a necessity than anything. Facebook in the very beginning was free. LinkedIn was free. so that when we started Atlas in 2012, that was before, you know, Facebook really exploded and, you know, paid marketing and all of that kind of, it has changed over the years, but it was all free. And then Instagram was free after that too. And the best way for me to get our message out there is to

turn the camera on, on my eyesight camera here on my MacBook, or turn my phone around and record myself, you know, just this is what we do and this is how we do it. And I could share it on Facebook and it didn’t cost me anything. I didn’t have any money anyway in the beginning. It was, you know, a startup. So that’s kind of where that came from. So I learned, I watched more YouTube videos than I can possibly imagine. Good, bad, otherwise. Like there’s a…

There’s a ton of knowledge out there. You’ve got to be able to kind of sort through, okay, what’s the good stuff? What’s the bad stuff there? Or useful stuff versus non-useful stuff there on, you know, and how does this apply to what I do? I still do it to this day. I claimed like, okay, my early mentors were Gary Vaynerchuk and Mark Cuban. And now it’s Yellow Tux guy from the Savannah Bananas. And yeah, that guy’s…

Anthony Codispoti (24:48.015)
Jesse Cole.

Rich (24:50.552)
That guy’s fantastic. But you know, and he still just walks around the ballpark with his phone like this. And I just, there’s something so, so just, just like perfect and simple about what he does. I’m proud to do it every day. Like I just did, like I did 12 years ago.

Anthony Codispoti (25:08.953)
I had another guest on a couple of months back, a guy by name of Sean Walchef, and he’s in the restaurant industry. And he coaches the exact same thing to restaurant owners. He’s like, take out your phone, turn on record, show people what you’re doing and post it. And like, I could see how that would be helpful in the restaurant industry, right? Like, hey, look at us, we’re making the salads, we’re getting the meats ready. Like, this is kind of what it’s like behind the scenes, you know, come down and…

and have dinner tonight. Tell me why this same kind of approach was helpful in Atlas.

Rich (25:46.114)
because we will rarely meet the people that we employ. So we have healthcare professionals in all 50 states working right now at hospitals. They’ll never come to Omaha, Nebraska. I may never go to Percipit New Jersey and meet them, right? I may never go to Reno, Nevada. I kind of want to, but I may never go to Reno and meet them. They meet me this way. And so I have a direct one-on-one connection with them.

Anthony Codispoti (26:11.439)
Mm.

Rich (26:15.18)
It’s funny, can I curse on your show? that okay? Okay, we have a product that we do every week called Free Shit Friday. And we just give away stuff. Sometimes it’s like our logo stuff. Sometimes it’s gift baskets. You never know. But that’s a way that we connect. On Tuesday, I say, okay, this is what we do. All you gotta do is tell me like, or post a picture of your dog or tell me your favorite restaurant that you eat at. And then one of our guys…

Anthony Codispoti (26:16.89)
Yes.

Rich (26:43.736)
puts them into a randomizer, picks them out, we pick out winners and then we send them whatever, if it’s our swag or whatever else we send it. But it’s a way for us to connect and I’ve learned so much about our travelers that way. Like the ones that love beer, the ones that love red wine, the ones that love horror movies or that type of thing. I’ve learned so much as if I was sitting right across from them having a meal, never met them before in my life.

Anthony Codispoti (27:09.013)
And so tell me a little bit more about the content. What, what is the video? Are you sort of promoting nurse life? Are you talking about beer and wine?

Rich (27:16.184)
Yeah. All the above. So, and that’s an old Gary Vaynerchuk thing is like, nobody wants to talk about what they do at work all the time. And then they don’t want to go home and they don’t want to watch content about that. So one of the examples is we have a beer podcast that ran for 256 episodes called a Beer with Atlas. And our travelers, our nurses all across the country would go to breweries and they would send us beers, in cans.

that they got from that brewery, then we would record it. We would open it, drink it, talk about it, talk about the label, talk about, you know, the name of it or whatever. For 256 episodes, had a successful, we had an award winning podcast just about our nurses going to breweries and sending us beers. And people in our industry at first were like, are you insane? You’re…

Anthony Codispoti (28:09.763)
Yeah, this sounds like this is crazy idea.

Rich (28:12.174)
It’s crazy. You’re recording, you’re drinking beer at the office at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday morning and recording this podcast. You would not believe the number of our travelers that listened to that and thought and said, you know what? I don’t even like beer, but I think this is fun. And I think it’s because we talk about the region or we talk about, you know, all the business and there was so much more than just the beer itself. Sometimes the beer was, you know, not even secondary. was, you know, it was an afterthought to to the conversation.

We also have multiple pieces of content too about what our nurses do or what our travelers do when they’re on a contract. So whether they travel in an RV and that’s where they live when they’re on a contract. Maybe they travel with pets. What do you do if your dog gets sick and you’re three states away from your vet? Where do you go? What do you do to take care of him? That type of thing. But yeah, there’s a lot of industry specific content that we produce too.

There’s a running podcast now, one of our most successful ones called Atlas All Access, where we just talk about the industry. That’s it. And you get a lot of information about that. it’s a little bit drier. I much prefer the beer with Atlas or why no Wednesday or free shit Friday and, you know, fun things that we do like that. But I also understand I have a responsibility back to our industry to share knowledge that, over the past 20 plus years now.

that I’ve been doing this.

Anthony Codispoti (29:44.367)
So do you think the more fun podcast, the more fun content, drinking the beer, having the wine is geared more towards the traveling nurses and the industry one is more towards, I don’t know, your peers or your clients?

Rich (29:57.142)
It depends. Yeah, it depends. And it honestly depends on the type of year too. Normally around tax time, one of our most popular pieces of content is how do I find my tax documents in, it was ADP, now it’s Paycom. Like how do I find those tax documents? What do I do with them? How do I, I’m not a tax professional, but I can certainly help you point, I can help point you in the right direction.

Anthony Codispoti (30:12.1)
Mm.

Rich (30:24.846)
to a tax specialist that deals with temporary work, gig economy, that type of thing. And so every year it kind of comes back around to that same sort of thing. We found our hospitals, like our contacts at the hospitals that we work with, listen to all of it. There isn’t necessarily anything that they don’t. And it’s fun. they listen to it because it’s fun.

Some because it’s informative and it gives them an interesting view into their employees’ lives that they wouldn’t otherwise see.

Anthony Codispoti (30:59.951)
So in your industry, kind of have a dual sales process, right? You need to sell and attract to the nurses and you need to sell and attract to the places that need the nurses. How much of your success on either side do you think you can attribute to your digital content, the podcast, the social media posts, et cetera?

Rich (31:09.686)
Absolutely.

Rich (31:19.094)
It’s definitely on the traveler side. It’s on the nurse and the tech therapist side for sure. As much as the other side is aware, it is a way for us to connect with those travelers that we would never meet otherwise.

Anthony Codispoti (31:32.983)
And what’s the secret sauce for establishing the relationships with your clients?

Rich (31:38.862)
I think part of it is authenticity is there’s a lot of there’s a lot of we have a couple 800 pound gorillas in our industry right now and they operate as that and you know, They they it’s no secret cross-country American mobile Aya the first two are publicly traded So they’re very much on you know CNBC and you know that type of thing where and Aya is just a very large large company. That’s it. That is very well run but

isn’t public traded at all, but they share a lot of data online. we’re the more like, want to say, mom and pop is not the way to explain it. It’s more just like, look, we’re the…

we’re a little bit different in the ways that they aren’t. We’re gonna give you that extra attention that maybe they don’t have the margin for, if that makes sense.

Anthony Codispoti (32:33.784)
So all this content that you’re creating, are you able to measure the ROI on it? Is that important to you?

Rich (32:41.272)
That’s a fun one for Steve, for sure, because as much as my brain doesn’t need that, his brain does. I don’t measure ROI as much, I measure ROA, return on awareness. Do you know who we are? Are you familiar with my logo? Are you familiar with the Atlas adventure that you get when you take a contract with us for the first time? We send you on an adventure. Our recruiters will ask you,

Is there something you want to do in Albuquerque, New Mexico, if that’s where your first contract is, that you’ve never done before? And maybe it’s, know what, I really want to go see Coldplay at, you know, or whatever, you know, when they play here. I want to go to an NFL game in Phoenix when, I’m a Cardinals fan. We’ll send them to go do that. And that doesn’t come out of their pay. That comes out of our side. And so that, I think that’s one of those differentiators that,

really sets us apart from everybody else and it goes back to that sort of Macy’s white glove experiences. Those conversations that our recruiters are having with our travelers from the beginning about who they are, what they do, what they like, and okay, let’s find something that makes your experience that much better. You’re not gonna notice an extra dollar a week on your pay, or a dollar an hour on your paycheck, but you’re gonna remember

when you go on that hot air balloon ride at the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico that happens every year and it’s unbelievable, you will always remember that and you’ll remember that we sent you there.

Anthony Codispoti (34:21.765)
It’s clear that there’s a fun and playful side to you and the brand. And before I go on with some of other questions, I want to kind of highlight what we’re seeing in the background there. Go back to kind of your nerdy days in high school and show me what’s back there.

Rich (34:36.429)
Yeah.

Rich (34:40.332)
Yeah, so, okay, so come back and go back in time with me. When I was three years old, my parents ran movie theaters. That was, that was, and when I was three years old, I saw Star Wars and I remember it like it was yesterday. Like I was three and I still remember it. And so, okay, so there’s, this is Masters of the Universe right here. He-Man, yes, that’s He-Man. But then here’s all, this is all Star Wars over here.

Anthony Codispoti (34:53.817)
Wow.

Anthony Codispoti (34:59.855)
He-Man and yeah, Skeletor.

Anthony Codispoti (35:07.353)
and these are all still in box.

Rich (35:09.134)
Still in the package. Yeah. In fact, I just, this is super nerdy, but I don’t mind sharing. So Mattel, when they sold, when they finally, no it was Hasbro, wasn’t it Hasbro? No, it was Mattel. Mattel Archives. So Mattel kept one of each when they produced it. And when they closed in, I believe it was in Ohio, I think close to where you’re located, when they closed their archives a number of years ago, they sold these off.

Anthony Codispoti (35:32.901)
Okay.

Rich (35:39.022)
So this is a it’s a this was the Mattel the one that they kept and it and it It has a sticker on the top like not for sale like you’ll see this sticker here and this sticker here It’s not it wasn’t supposed to be for sale. It was in their archives So they always had it and they sold them all off and so I have I have two of these actually

Anthony Codispoti (35:59.949)
Should I ask how you came to put your hands on them?

Rich (36:03.01)
I friends Facebook, like I, I’m, I’m fairly good at social media after all these years. And so I’ve made a lot of friends through social media and, yeah. And so that that’s how I ended up with, with this one, with, with a lot of these actually.

Anthony Codispoti (36:20.281)
Now, do you have any of them that you allow yourself to take out of the box? you play with them? Do you interact with them? Or is it more of a collector’s sort of a thing? I like to have them in mint condition.

Rich (36:31.982)
I love the art, the package art to me is unbelievable. look at here, this one over here, let’s see. the very first GI Joe I ever bought was barbecue. And I just, there was something about this package art to me that when I was a kid, probably eight years old, that really spoke to me. So now I have one in the package with the package art and you can look on the back and I remember when we were kids, like we would mark them off as we got them, know, we would, you know, that’s it.

Anthony Codispoti (37:00.025)
Okay.

Rich (37:01.592)
thing so yeah yeah so once again now now it all makes sense right why I didn’t succeed in high school because there you go

Anthony Codispoti (37:03.125)
a little checklist for you.

Anthony Codispoti (37:09.573)
Well, but like you said, I think we’re also hitting upon what has led to you being so successful. You’re really good with people, right? You’re good in this interaction and you’ll outwork anybody. You’ll out hustle. There’s no job that’s beneath you. You’re unclogging toilets. You’re cleaning out the coffee maker. You’re the receptionist. I think a lot of valuable lessons here, you know, as people start to grow their companies, sometimes they get

maybe like a little above that kind of stuff and no, not you.

Rich (37:39.619)
Yep. Yeah. There isn’t anything that you should ever… That isn’t my job. Should never come out of your mouth. It’s never come out of my mouth. And if it does, I’ve been abducted by aliens or something. Yeah. There you go. Yep.

Anthony Codispoti (37:48.165)
Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (37:54.17)
That’ll be the telltale sign. So what are the growth plans going forward, Rich?

Rich (37:59.854)
Our industry went through a, I mean with the pandemic, through some pretty dramatic changes. We were on a very nice growth trajectory anyway. The pandemic slammed things to a halt and then accelerated them as fast, faster than all of us could possibly imagine. And then once that was done, hospitals realized, my goodness, we spent so much money that we…

We’ve got to stop like and the first thing to end is contingent labor is is is is temporary staff It’s coming back around now. So we’re kind of reliving We’re going through what we went through in 08 09 with the financial crisis all over again, but even more dramatic Our industry is gonna grow Over the next couple of years. We’re gonna grow out of the you know, the downturn that we’re in right now. I

Anthony Codispoti (38:43.235)
Yeah.

Rich (38:55.478)
I joke with Steve that we both turned 50 this year. I turned 50 in June. He just turned 50 a couple of days ago. And I’m like, I finally found something I’m good at. I don’t think I ever want to leave. I want to keep doing this. Now, my wife will want me to retire at some point and I get it, but I don’t think I ever want to stop hearing the stories of our travelers or understanding who they are or why they do what they do. That’s really, that’s my oxygen every day is.

is their stories and why they do what they do, why they leave their families or their homes and they go for three months or six months or nine months out of the year to a completely different state and work in a completely different hospital than the one just down the street from them. Why did they do that? I love those stories and it’d be tough to leave something like that.

Anthony Codispoti (39:51.034)
Tell me more about why this model specifically of traveling, because it does seem like it would create extra expense and extra strain on the employees.

Rich (40:00.608)
sure and it does in a lot of ways that it has you know especially we’ve seen over the years when I started at Medical Solutions 20 years ago the average age of a traveling nurse was kids are out of school husbands probably retired or getting close to retired husband or wife you know either way it was very female driven back then so it was much older stuff 40s to 50s somewhere in there what we’re finding now though is

That has changed considerably. The average age of a travel nurse or travel therapist is somewhere in their late 20s, out of school, both male and female. So before marriage, before kids, maybe they have a dog and that’s their commitment and they’ll pretty much go anywhere. The money’s pretty darn good for them. And that’s part of the reason why.

Hospitals have realized, especially because of the pandemic, that it is more cost effective to hire a traveler at a higher rate for three months instead of trying to hire a permanent staff for an entire year, but only needing them for that three months worth of time. So we’re.

Anthony Codispoti (41:18.669)
What are the circumstances in which a hospital may only need somebody for three months?

Rich (41:23.246)
pregnancy, there’s, you know, nurse goes down with a broken leg or, know, any, there’s any number of things that might happen. There could be a new hospital opens and they’re trying to open a pediatric wing and, know, to really take control of in that city of the, you know, the pediatric nursing population or the, healthcare population. So they’ll bring in extra, extra help for that. We’re seeing a lot with, with hurricane relief.

right now on the coast. They’re going to bring in temporary staff to help out there.

Anthony Codispoti (41:59.343)
So Rich, I’m hearing your story. Guy that works really hard, hustles, has built this great successful business, really comfortable on camera. You seem to me like a guy who’s got it in control, like a calm, cool cucumber. Is that how you would describe yourself?

Rich (42:18.19)
No, no, absolutely not. No, no, no. I struggled. I struggled terribly with anxiety. I always have. And maybe that goes back to high school. I don’t, I don’t know where it came from. mental health is, is kind of one those undiagnosed things in our country right now that I think we need to, I personally would love if we focused more on that. my son has special needs. We adopted our son from Russia when he was 14 months old.

Anthony Codispoti (42:19.3)
No?

Rich (42:46.026)
And he has special needs he struggles. He struggles with mental health Issues and he’s a great kid. He’s a he’s an awesome kid But there are things that I just I simply do not understand about you know Why his brain works the way that it does and maybe that’s why he and I are as close as we are because I don’t understand Why my brain works the way that it does sometimes why I’m just I’m paralyzed with fear in you know in some scenarios

It takes a lot for me to get on an airplane. takes a lot for me to not be the driver of a car, which is ridiculous. I need to be in control in those kind of scenarios. So no, I’m very comfortable right here, one-on-one with you doing these types of things. But yeah, in life, I have struggled a lot with anxiety.

Anthony Codispoti (43:20.613)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (43:36.601)
So you mentioned a couple of things. Being on an airplane, in a car, you need to be the driver. Would you sort of put most of the anxiety that you run into under sort of an umbrella of lack of control? Or is that not accurate?

Rich (43:54.926)
I think that’s accurate. Not control like I need to, like my ego makes me control it. It’s I’m not in control of myself. And if I can’t control myself and what I’m doing at that time, that’s when I struggle. When I have to rely on somebody else. And maybe that goes back to that work ethic, like, you know what, I’ll just do it. Let me take care of it. I’ll do it instead. don’t need, it’s hard for me to relinquish

Anthony Codispoti (44:05.54)
Mm.

Rich (44:24.194)
Control to someone when I know you know what I’ll just I’ll take the extra time and I’ll do it myself at the neglect of maybe something that’s even more important I’ll still do it and Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s a character flaw. I don’t know

Anthony Codispoti (44:38.457)
But it’s interesting, I mean, a lot of business owners sort of have this inability to sort of shift gears from startup mode where they’re wearing all the hats and doing all the things. Clearly to some degree, you’ve been able to do that, to be able to grow such a big company, you’ve got 200 internal staff. Like, it seems like your role would have to have changed through that process.

Rich (44:59.98)
You know, what’s funny about that is I realized that if I’m the smartest person in the room, we have a problem. And I’m very, very comfortable saying that out loud and saying like, I realize you’re so much better at this than I am. And I can give you control of that piece of whatever that is. I’ll still be involved. Like I’m still a hundred percent involved in, you know, this is.

As of recording right now, it’s Friday at three o’clock and I can’t wait to get back in to, where are at for the week? How many travelers have replaced? Where are we at with extensions? Like that type of thing. But I absolutely trust the people that I’ve put into those positions because they’re good at their job and they are smarter than me at that. And I’m totally fine with that.

Anthony Codispoti (45:49.551)
So have you tried anything that has helped with the anxiety? Medications, supplements, meditation, I don’t know, breathing exercises?

Rich (45:58.7)
I can’t. Yeah, I wish I could sit still long enough to meditate. can’t. No, medication didn’t necessarily work for me either. couldn’t I could never find anything that worked, unfortunately. So I just kind of live with it. Yeah, I just kind of live with it.

Anthony Codispoti (46:16.463)
You know, I’ve had similar conversations with a number of business owners and we’ve tried to sort of unravel this thread of like, why is that anxious feeling there? Like what purpose is it serving? And I’ve got an interesting theory that it’s almost like the little engine that keeps us moving forward, right? Because there’s this uncomfortable feeling here. What do I do? Well, I want to get away from it. So how do I get away from it? Well, I take a step forward into some kind of action or activity.

And so it could be that this anxiety is uncomfortable as it makes you feel in your skin. It’s a big reason that you are as successful as you are because you’re always sort of pushed to move forward to get away from that thing and do something else. I don’t know. Is that land true at all?

Rich (46:59.394)
Yes. Yeah. I think that’s a hundred percent true. have have a quote on my, at my desk, at the reception desk, there at the office from Mark Cuban that says, work 24 hours a day. Like someone’s trying to take it all away from you. And that, that drives me right there. I, I, I have great relationships with our competitors, with the other owners that are our size in the industry and even some of the larger companies too. But I will.

Anthony Codispoti (47:15.161)
Hmm.

Rich (47:28.842)
I will bleed to work harder than them. And regardless of how much bigger they are, like I will, I will do everything I possibly can to outwork.

Anthony Codispoti (47:31.47)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (47:38.159)
You know, one of my favorite questions to ask, I think you already touched on part of it is, you know, tight labor market, hard to retain and hold on, you know, hard to recruit and retain good folks. What are you guys doing that you think works? I mean, you talked about like the hot air balloon rides, but you know, tell me a little bit more about your approach.

Rich (47:49.976)
Yeah.

Rich (47:56.802)
Yeah. As our industry continues to go in those two separate directions, I want to force the issue on our side even more. So as much as you can do a lot of what you want from your phone, it’s still, I use this example a lot and I’ve used it on stage with some of our competitors that are very, who I’m very good friends with, that are very online, that are very, you can do this kind of thing yourself.

at two o’clock in the morning, if you’re an ER nurse and you get stuck with an HIV positive needle, the IVR system, the phone call that you make is not going to understand what just happened to you and how scared you are, but your recruiter will, and that’s what we offer. So that’s the difference. And you can do a lot of the menial tasks on the front end.

the uploading your documents, uploading your license, you know, in your, your, you know, any of the compliance documents, you can do that on your phone right now in a very secure way. But your recruiter is your lifeline. Your recruiter is the person that understands what you’re going through every single day. And there are some companies that don’t have that. And then there’s, there’s us and other companies like us too. And I’m going to continue pushing as hard as I possibly can towards that human connection that because

The further, the more we do here, the more we lose this. The more we lose that human connection. I don’t want to lose that.

Anthony Codispoti (49:30.167)
Is that why, I mean, I don’t know what typical industry ratios are, but when you tell me you’ve got maybe a thousand nurses in the field and you’ve got 2,000 internal staff, it seems like that’s a lot of internal staff to support.

Rich (49:45.07)
200, 200 internal staff, I’m sorry, 200 internal staff, yeah. It could be, yes, yeah, it totally could be, but we do all of our own internal payroll. One of the cool, sexy things to do right now is offload your payroll overseas to a company that isn’t located in the United States. One of the other cool, sexy things to do is offload your compliance to a company that is overseas. We still do all of that in-house.

Anthony Codispoti (49:47.322)
Yeah.

Rich (50:13.55)
I still have a person either in Omaha or somewhere in the United States that reviews every single one of your documents to make sure that not only are you compliant, is it exactly what they need, but then it’s still viable. okay, your expiration date is June of 25, in May of 25, we’re gonna start contacting you here, this way, to tell you, okay, this is gonna expire.

But then, you the next month, we’re gonna have a live person on the phone. Your ACLS, your BLS, your license is going to expire. You need to get that renewed.

Anthony Codispoti (50:52.195)
Well, and I hear you saying how much or how important the personal touch is to you, right? You can do the menial stuff with the technology, with the phones, with the apps. But like the example that you used where, you know, a nurse got stuck with an HIV positive needle, they need to talk to somebody. And so I would guess that’s where, you know, having such a strong internal staff is important to be able to support people in those kinds of situations.

Rich (50:59.832)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Rich (51:17.174)
And by the way, that’s a real life scenario. We actually had that happen at a hospital in Colorado and the nurse is fine. She is. She’s great. She did great now. But man, she was scared. it was those conversations I had afterwards with her that really made a difference. And it was conversations this way. It was through zoom rather than in person that, OK, how could we have done this differently? How could we, you know, or whatever? And

And her response was, I didn’t have to fill out anything on my phone. I was so scared. I just had to tell my recruiter. And she took care of all of that for me. And that’s when I thought, OK, OK, this is we’re on the right track here.

Anthony Codispoti (51:52.025)
Hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (51:58.563)
Yeah, no, that’s great. You know, one of the other things that’s really important is a business owner obviously always got to keep an eye on the bottom line, right? What does the profit and loss look like? And as we do that, you know, there’s sort of two big levers that we can pull. There’s how do we increase sales, right? And then there’s how do we decrease expenses? Thinking about those two levers, can you think of a particularly creative approach that you’ve taken to one or the other?

Rich (52:27.15)
Yeah, we didn’t and in our industry we have a thing called a managed service provider or outside of that that’s a company like Atlas who will go to a facility and say like we’ll handle all of your staffing for you and then subcontract out the needs that we can’t fill. I don’t have that. I don’t want to take on that responsibility. That’s a huge cost up front for multiple

5 % fee 7 % fee 9 % fee, you know coming from the sub from the sub vendors I’d rather just pay that that that that fee along the way and not have all of those headaches that it takes You know at that at that level Steve calls it Switzerland. We’re we’re Switzerland. We don’t have an MSP I don’t I don’t compete against you the larger, you know larger company at any point But I’m gonna be there to help you out when when you have all those ER jobs open

Anthony Codispoti (53:27.725)
And so what is the benefit for the companies that go that route?

Rich (53:31.5)
The benefit is we would never lose a nurse to a location. I’ll give you an example. There are two very large. We’ve talked about already, AYA and AMN, American Mobile. So American Mobile’s publicly traded, AYA is not. And they don’t like each other at all. It’s very public how much they don’t like each other. So AYA has no access to the AMN hospitals that they have contracts at and vice versa. So they lose out on each side.

Anthony Codispoti (53:46.457)
Yeah.

Rich (54:01.292)
to those chunks of facilities all across the country where I have access to both of them. And I can staff my nurses in either one of them as long as they pay my 5 % or 7 % or whatever it is back to the MSP, to AYA or AMN.

Anthony Codispoti (54:17.114)
okay. I understand now. So each of these two companies that don’t like each other, they’ve got agreements with their hospitals that say, you can’t let the other big guy in here.

Rich (54:27.672)
Correct, yeah. They are the managed service provider for that hospital. And so they can decide, they say, okay, Mr. Hospital, we’re gonna do all of your temporary staffing from everything, from dieticians to everything else. And then they come to us and say, okay, you’re really good at travel nursing. We need you to be a sub-vendor for this MSP, for this contract right here. They will not let the other one in though.

Anthony Codispoti (54:54.51)
Gotcha. Rich, I heard you mention that you turned 50 this year. I did as well. Sounds like we’re a couple months apart. I’ve got, thank you, yep, same to you. I’ve got two boys who are eight and 10. And if I’ve done my homework correctly, I think you may be a grandfather. Is that accurate? Okay.

Rich (55:02.722)
Congratulations.

Rich (55:13.762)
That is correct. Yes, I am. Yep. Yeah. I’ve got the gray in here to prove it. So yes, yes, I am. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (55:22.053)
And how many grandkids?

Rich (55:23.982)
Two, two so far.

Anthony Codispoti (55:25.655)
How old are they?

Rich (55:27.502)
Let’s see, they’re four and they four and one three and one. Yeah. Yes. They’re very very very young

Anthony Codispoti (55:31.301)
Okay, so we were on different trajectories in our 20s, it sounds like. Different time scale.

Rich (55:38.892)
Yes. Well, but I’ve got a 15 year old upstairs that is asking me, know, dad, what are we doing tonight? Cause he wants to go play with his friends. So yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (55:48.225)
Okay. So you’re still in the midst of that too. All right. Let me see. I understand one of your bucket list items is to visit every major league baseball stadium in the country. How is that goal coming along?

Rich (55:52.373)
Absolutely.

Rich (56:05.462)
thanks to the pandemic, not great. maybe thanks to make growing a business, not great either. I’m a Chicago Cubs fan. And so if, if they go somewhere, if it’s, if, if I have an opportunity, I will go watch them. So I’m probably six or eight, ballparks into that right now. So it has not gone well. I need to, I need to refocus on that for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (56:08.633)
Mm.

Anthony Codispoti (56:30.403)
Well, I’m just a couple hours away from both Cleveland Stadium and the Cincinnati Stadium. I would love to go with you sometime if you find yourself out this way.

Rich (56:38.732)
You got a fun triangle there. There’s a number within hours of each other. We could hit quite a few balls. Yeah. Yes. my goodness.

Anthony Codispoti (56:43.567)
Pittsburgh, yep, Detroit, yep, yep. We could make a week or two out of it. We line it up right. Any particular mentors, books, or experiences that have helped shape you or your professional career?

Rich (56:49.516)
Yep, for sure. For sure.

Rich (56:57.838)
I, one book that I always go back to, I’m a, I’m a beer nerd too. Not that I enjoy brewing beer, but I really enjoy the craft beer side of, of, of, like beer and brewing and that type of thing. early on I read Jim Cook’s, book about how he started Boston beer company. And, it was it.

There were a lot of parallels, I think, to what I was trying to do with Atlas at the time. If there was one guy, like I’ve hosted people on the podcast, on my podcast before on Atlas All Access. if there was like white whale, there’s one guy I could talk to, it’d be Jim Cook. And I think that guy, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things similar about us. I would love to just ask him questions nonstop for two or three hours. I think I would, I would probably drive him insane.

Anthony Codispoti (57:41.006)
Hmm.

Rich (57:53.708)
with the questions, but I think the guy is, not only is he really, really good at marketing, he’s really, really good at people, and that’s what I find most interesting about him. The other thing that I do is I listen to a lot of podcasts myself. This American Life is a Chicago Public Radio’s podcast. Ira Glass is possibly one of the best.

at asking the follow-up question that I’ve ever heard in my life. if I could just, I’ve written him a number of like letters that he’s never answered and that’s okay. But it’s always like, I can’t believe how good you are at asking the follow-up question. getting that, anybody can ask the initial question, right? Those are easy, but really being able to dig in and find that, that.

that extra little bit of that follow-up that is so key to make his interviews so much more interesting. And that’s Ira. And I’d like to meet him at least once and talk to him in person.

Anthony Codispoti (58:58.287)
So couple other Beckett List items there, Ira Glass and Jim Cook. Yeah. So just got one more question for you, Rich, but before I ask, I wanna do two things. People listening today, if you like today’s content, please hit the like, share, or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. I also wanna let people know the best way to get in touch with you, Rich. You have got so many social media handles, you’re all over the place. What’s the best way for people to connect?

Rich (59:01.398)
and Jim Cook. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Rich (59:22.254)
LinkedIn or Facebook, I’m there way more than I possibly should be. If you contact us on YouTube, if you watch any of our content on YouTube, we have 2,500 plus videos on travel healthcare. Some of it’s fun, some of it’s like me eating stupid food, but some of it is really good content too, really good, really informative content about traveling with pets or traveling in an RV or.

Taxes for a temporary staff worker that type of thing. It’s all right there It would get back to me eventually, but yeah Facebook and LinkedIn for sure. Look me up there

Anthony Codispoti (59:57.677)
And so if they look for Rich Smith, Atlas, or yeah, Atlas Med Staff, that’ll help them find you. Okay, great. So last question for you, Rich. I’m kind of curious to get your take on where you see your industry going in the next few years. What do think the big changes are there?

Rich (01:00:02.04)
Yeah,

Rich (01:00:13.166)
So during the pandemic, I had a conversation with an agency owner about the same size as us, in a different vertical in staffing. And he said something to me that I carry on to this day. He said, it’s about time you guys caught up to us. You guys, meaning healthcare staffing. We were an afterthought in nationwide staffing for a number of years. It only took a pandemic for us to catch up. And I still think we’re…

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:33.048)
Okay.

Rich (01:00:41.998)
We’re a very nice slice of that pie, even now, even through a downturn in our industry. still, hospitals and larger facilities or multi-facility systems have realized that the way to really handle their staffing is through temporary staff, especially if they’re in a snowbird state or

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:10.489)
Mmm.

Rich (01:01:10.734)
It’s a place like that that has variable population. So they can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. It’s already, it happened during the pandemic. They realize how they can utilize that now and use us to their advantage. And that was, I said that out loud at one, I was at an SIA and I said that out loud and the hospital came up to us and said, that sounds negative. Like you shouldn’t have said that. I’m like, whoa, wait a minute.

If you use us to your advantage, it’s good for me and it’s good for you. I don’t know how that’s a negative. That’s, that is definitely a positive.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:47.917)
What was their negative spin on it?

Rich (01:01:49.734)
using that we’re using you to to you know to their advantage so

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:55.677)
utilizing maybe as a slightly softer word. You’re not bothered by it.

Rich (01:01:59.0)
Sure, yeah. Once again, no college degree here. don’t, yeah, yeah, so there you go. Use me however you want. It’s good for you, it’s good for me.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:10.405)
Rich, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Rich (01:02:16.878)
Thank you so much. I’m sorry it took us so long to get here, but I’m certainly glad that it did

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:21.739)
Likewise, this was a lot of fun. Well, folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.