How Scott Mayer Turned Nine Months of Learning Staffing Into Employee-Owned QPS Employment Group

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
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 Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Scott Mayer, chairman of the executive board at QPS employment group. They are an employee owned staffing and recruiting firm founded in 1985, headquartered in Wisconsin and dedicated to building meaningful relationships.

through exceptional service. They specialize in light industrial, office clerical, skilled trades, and professional services, helping both clients and candidates succeed. Under Scott’s leadership, QPS transitioned to employee ownership, ensuring the company’s culture and values continue to thrive. Scott has spent over 40 years in the staffing industry, beginning in a one-room office in the Milwaukee suburb of Hales Corners.

Over time, he has grown QPS into a nationally recognized firm, earning widespread recognition, providing quality staffing solutions. Known for his passion, community engagement, and dedication to excellence, Scott’s leadership has played a key role in shaping QPS and fostering a supportive work environment. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

Today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back 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. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medication. And it’s great for high turnover temporary workers too. But here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets and the company’s too.

One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, founder of QPS Employment, Scott Mayer. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Scott (02:13)
Well, I just heard your ad and I’m wondering is QPS a customer or why aren’t they yet?

Anthony Codispoti (02:17)
Let’s talk a little bit more afterwards. I appreciate the plug. Okay, so you founded QPS over 40 years ago. How did you get your start in the staffing field?

Scott (02:20)
Sounds like a plan. Thank you.

Well, it actually started in high school when my best friend’s dad started a company. This is now in the early to mid 80s. It was a summer jobs for youth program and we were hiring and firing and training and managing kids. As a kid myself, I was responsible for all of that. It was a summer program where kids were hired to go door to door and sell a coupon book for a charity and they made a commission off of it. So.

As a kid, I learned how to hire, fire, and manage. Never knew I would apply those resources down the road, but I learned that as a kid. Then I went off and did college for two years. Didn’t do it real well. Played basketball. We had practice at six in the morning, six at night, and of course I’m a young punk, so I had to go out at night. Turns out there wasn’t so much time for school, so I kind of failed out of college and…

sitting on the street, what am I gonna do? And I looked back then we had help wanted sections in the local newspaper and I found a staffing firm back then they’re called temporary help service looking for kind of a girl Friday to kind of do odds and ends at the firm applied, got hired. They taught me everything about the industry and nine months later after they kind of didn’t treat me great or pay me well, I parted ways with them and sat in my.

parents basement and decided to open a one room office and start my own little staffing firm.

Anthony Codispoti (03:58)
Well, this all happened pretty quickly. So let me go back to high school. The connection from high school to the staffing industry was just sort of cutting your teeth on, you know, learning how to manage people, hire them, fire them, kind of get, you know, your feet wet at a very young age of sort of those critical core components that would become important later on.

Scott (04:18)
Yeah, you know, I had obviously no idea at the time. It was great to have a really good paying job as a 15, 16, 17 year old kid. And it was cool being able to be like a manager hiring and firing and I had no idea that someday that would really be the backbone of what I did for a living. So it really built who I was because I had no dreams or visions of doing this for a living. It just kind of pushed me in that direction having a base of

learning how to run a business, hire and fire and staff and do personnel.

Anthony Codispoti (04:53)
So why were you given so much responsibility at such a young age, do you think?

Scott (04:57)
Well, part of it is, again, my best friend’s dad started the company. So I had a little bit of an end, but I had to start like everybody else. And I was given coupon books and a subdivision to go. If you can imagine today, it’d be hard to walking door to door, walking in strangers houses, telling them about this amazing coupon book for $5. If they would buy it, they would support a local charity as well as kids in the summer. And the coupon book had all sorts of cool coupons in it. So I started selling.

And I was actually really good at selling. again, because my best friend’s dad ran the place, eventually it grew to the point where ⁓ my best friend’s dad needed additional help kind of running the place. So again, my best friend, his son and myself were tasked with come summer too, you guys go out and do all the hiring and firing and managing. And we kind of took over the business and he went off to.

do something else. So we really were given the opportunity to run the business and it wasn’t rocket science. Again, back then you put an ad in local paper summer jobs were back in 1983, 84, you could make 10, $15 an hour, which was unheard of. So we have tons of kids coming in, we got to pick and choose who we hired and sent them off with a team leader to go out around the metro Milwaukee area selling coupon books and managing it and

Anthony Codispoti (06:08)
Yeah.

Scott (06:21)
You know, it just slowly built from there for several years.

Anthony Codispoti (06:25)
Would you describe yourself as somebody who’s naturally confident because now I’m hearing that you went to work for a staffing firm for a grand total of nine months before deciding you knew enough to go out and start your own firm.

Scott (06:40)
Well, first of all, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, right? I mean, I was a young punk. I had never envisioned any of this. mean, I truly, I was scared after I failed out of college. What am I going to do? I mean, I have to go get a job. Am I going to be a garbage man? I mean, I really, I wasn’t great scholastically, but I’m a good talker. You know, I guess I was a good salesperson selling the coupon books door to door. So it naturally kind of just came to me. Is there something

similar that I can go and do and it was by the grace of God that I saw an ad in the paper for a company that was looking to hire somebody to kind of just fill in gaps. Ultimately taught me the entire business of staffing and work there. Never had any inspiration to leave. Actually my dad owned his own business and he’d always say don’t ever own your own business it’s such a bear to do and of course we never listened to our parents but it was never my motivation. I would have worked there forever but

They didn’t treat me great and they really didn’t pay me good. Again, this was 1985 and they were paying me six bucks an hour. So I know that sounds horrible today. It wasn’t quite as bad back then, but it wasn’t, they weren’t really doing a good job taking care of me. If they would have took care of me, I never would have left. I’d have been there forever. I had no vision to do anything on my own, but they taught me everything about the business. And we kind of had an agreed upon parting aways after these nine months. Remember I’m 19 years old at this point.

And I’m just thinking, hey, I’ve got some ideas how I think I could do it better. Because again, I’m a 19-year-old arrogant punk. I think I can do it better than these people were doing it that were experienced. They were a franchise of a national chain. And I thought I could take their ideas and enhance them and start my own deal and go from there. And that’s what I did.

Anthony Codispoti (08:29)
And so you started this company and it was a smashing success right out of the gate, right?

Scott (08:34)
Yeah, you’re reading the wrong notes. No, I had two partners early on one lasted a week another lasted a couple years and it just wasn’t for him No, we’re in a one-room office. I honored my non-compete so I could only do permanent placement I couldn’t do temporary because back then non-competes were very enforceable plus I’m an ethical person I really do try to honor commitments and I made that commitment signing that non-compete so I worked for a year outside of temporary and

You know, I’m living at home. This is before computers. This is only at the dawn of the fax machine, which nobody even knows that anymore because we’re long past that. So literally we started the business in a one room office with a friend’s $5,000 investment. And I made no salary probably for the first two or three years. And it was touch and go trying to find customers. Can you imagine being a 19 year old kid? I’m going out saying, use this staffing firm. I would never say it was mine because who’s going to want to

work with a punk that owns his own place. So I just said I was a sales rep, which I wasn’t lying. I was a sales rep for this firm. And I got a couple tiny opportunities that slowly pieced together. And by the grace of God, I think it was year two or three. Kraft Foods had a big contract in Waukesha, Wisconsin. And Kraft Foods also bought a big chain called Tombstone Pizza and relocated a plant to Sussex, Wisconsin.

and I got both of those contracts. And at that point, we were off to the races, although we weren’t out of the woods, but we had some light and some opportunity to really scale and do some business as a tiny little business startup.

Anthony Codispoti (10:17)
How did you land those big contracts?

Scott (10:20)
Scott Maier sales rep for QPS, Quality Placement Service was the name back at the time. And I went out and said, I can do it differently. I can find you really good hardworking people. And back then we were kind of in a recessionary time. If you can imagine, I put an ad in the paper, this Wholesome Foods at the time, again, 1986 or seven, was paying $15 an hour for no skilled general labor. I had lines out the door. I had hundreds of hardworking people to choose from.

place and I found a way to find more people than my competitor that I used to work for and you know I found a niche and a way to find tons of people and when you have tons of resources you apply them to your customer and they fall in love with you and they were customers forever.

Anthony Codispoti (11:10)
So what were some of these things that you were doing differently? How were you able to find more folks than they were?

Scott (11:15)
Yeah, that’s the secret sauce. ⁓ You know, hard to remember back to when I was 19 and 20 years old, but I think it was something simple like sharing more information in the newspaper. You know, I know the competitor that I worked for would put very generic, tiny ads in the paper, and I would put a bigger ad in and I would really better describe the job and make it sound much more appealing than what the competition did. And

When it sounds appealing, guess what? You get lots of candidates. When you get lots of candidates, you can pick the best of the best, place them and look like an absolute hero. And I made these two companies. mean, forever, they would tell people that if it wasn’t for Scott Mayer, I don’t know if we’d be where we are. That’s how impactful I was by finding hundreds, hundreds of really good workers to build a base for these two companies’ startup operations.

Anthony Codispoti (12:10)
So prior to landing those big contracts, you know, barely getting by, you’re not paying yourself anything. Ever a thought to just throw in the towel?

Scott (12:19)
No, I wouldn’t know what else to do. I had nothing else and I knew that I could make this work. knew, you know, I had a, I was a collector as a kid. So I collected coins, cards, beer cans. There was a point where I was selling off all of my personal valuables to try to make enough money to put gas in the car. I mean, it was truly, you know, probably

three, four years before I ever started making a little bit of money. But again, living in my parents’ house, I had very, very, very little expenses. That was on the dawn of the cell phone era, although back then it wasn’t a cell phone, it was a car phone. And I went and landed a contract with the local cellular telephone car business. And I got one of the first car phones ever put in a car. And I got it for free. So again, I’m a sales rep and I lived really cheap.

and lived at home and my parents fed me and had a roof over my head and I didn’t have to make any money for the first couple years and I didn’t. We barely made enough to, you know, pay the rent and afford applications and stuff like that. But then it started to turn after these two accounts.

Anthony Codispoti (13:32)
But in between that time, before you got those big contracts, never thought to throw in the towel. Was it more just out of desperation? Because like you said, I don’t know what else to do. Like this is the only thing I’ve got going. Or was it just like the supreme confidence in knowing that your sales skills are eventually going to land some big fish and you’ll be all right one day?

Scott (13:54)
Yeah, probably all the above. I wouldn’t know what else to do. And I knew that I had a little bit of time to try to make this work. I mean, the competitor I worked for, I knew I was, could do better. And I knew that he was successful. And I just knew that I needed a little bit of time to get grounded and get a few accounts. And one adds to another, adds to another. And I knew in time, yeah, there, was a zero fail mission. I had nothing else I could possibly do.

and I was stubborn and I didn’t know what I didn’t know and I was probably a little arrogant thinking I can make this work. There was never ever a thought of anything else.

Anthony Codispoti (14:34)
Okay. So Scott, 40 years later, I’m sure that the business has evolved in all kinds of ways. Let’s maybe pick a couple of the waypoints between, you know, 40 years ago and today, October of 2025, moments that were key inflection points where maybe you took the business in a little bit of a different direction or had some key realizations.

Scott (14:57)
Well, you know, again, back to early on, there were points when we became a staffing firm. What a staffing firm does is, again, with Tombstone Pizza, we send them people, we pay the people, we’re technically the employer, and then we send a bill to Tombstone for 200 people times 40 hours a week for, you know, $50,000 a week. Well, we needed Tombstone to pay that invoice because I can’t wait. I have to pay the people every single week. So,

early struggles were, am I going to make payroll this week? And those people need to be paid. by the way, the state and federal government wouldn’t appreciate me missing payroll. I mean, the early struggles were, can we get the payroll met? So that was number one of the early struggles after we got off the ground. You know, moving fast forward, another big day in our history was one of my other two founders that eventually became owners in the company.

had a massive heart attack and died. And he was such an integral part of the business to lose him was one of the most critical points in the history of company. So that was a big issue to get over. And then, you know, kind of bringing us to date is the ESOP when we decided and it started with Mark passing away. He kind of told us, we’re not going to be here forever. Let’s figure this out and let’s do something. And I’ve always told people,

Anthony Codispoti (16:07)
Yeah.

Scott (16:26)
⁓ famously that I’m not going to sell the manpower, one of the bigger competitors in the nation, world, and I’m not going to sell the private equity. So what other options are there to pass it on to family? I’ve got a son that’s a professional race car driver, a daughter that’s an actress. They don’t want the firm. I’m not going to sell it to manpower or private equity. The only other real viable option was to do an ESOP. And I’ve always said the employees act like they own it. They bleed QPS blue.

why not let them own it? So after Mark died, we decided let’s do an employee stock ownership plan and to date they own the company and I report to them.

Anthony Codispoti (17:05)
Okay, so let’s go through a couple of these things together. First, that cash flow issue that you were describing early on, you get this big contract, wow, that’s really exciting. But like you pointed out, there’s a gap between when you’ve got all these, you’ve got all the expenses up front, right? Those employees need paid on a weekly basis, right? There’s all the payroll taxes that you owe, etc, etc, everything that goes along with that. But you’ve probably got maybe at best net 30, probably net 60 with your client, am I?

Scott (17:22)
Correct. Correct.

Well, back then it was,

and they knew, you know, when I negotiated the agreement, they got an inkling and I tried to keep it as close to 30 as possible. I didn’t have any money. So I actually got a line of credit from the bank that we’re still with today. Now it wasn’t for much. It was a really expensive line because I’m risky, right? And it was for 25,000, but that covered one or two payrolls and I had saved up some.

Anthony Codispoti (17:43)
you

Scott (17:58)
previous earnings to help. So it was tight. I used every dollar I possibly could. And again, I was on my hands and knees about once a week praying to God, please let that invoice get paid. I can remember one time going out and seeing the customer and seeing an invoice sit on the top of his stack of papers. And I’m like, I had a pretty good report. Again, like that piece of paper there. You think you could take care of that for me? Because we’re struggling here. We got to pay everybody. And they had no idea how

really fragile it was. They looked at me as a vendor. But when you build a relationship, and that’s what I’m all about is relationships, people go out of their way to do business with people they like and they cut breaks to people they like. There’s two quick points of interest there that built this company. They liked me and they would give me breaks. And when they liked me, I could say things to them like,

pay that bill dude, come on. you know, he didn’t just drop everything and do it, but he probably after I left made sure to take care of it because there were times where we made payroll by, you know, a couple hours. So that was early on struggles, very, very real because again, early on a bank, I had an incredibly high rate and I still have the letter from that bank, which is our still present banker. I framed it because I had to pay a $500 fee even to

apply for a line and today we have, you know, below prime rates. Back then it was above prime rates and again it was only for $25,000 but it was a week’s worth of payroll and you take what you can get and you scrape by and scratch and get the rest of it. So yeah, that was a very early challenge was making payroll week after week.

Anthony Codispoti (19:40)
Yeah, I like that story. The next story I don’t care for quite as much, but your partner passed away. Sudden heart attack. How recent was that?

Scott (19:46)
Yes.

April 26, 2018, to be exact. This was my best friend that his dad hired us when we were kids. So it came full circle and he eventually joined QPS a year after I founded it and came on to head our sales. And eventually I awarded him stock in the company and he was an integral part. He was more important to the company than I was.

He was an amazing, amazing man. And yeah, so he passed away in 2018. And a quick fun story for you, because we got to have some fun about this. I got one letter, plenty of people gave me their condolences, but I got one letter in the mail from Jonas Priestling. He’s the chairman and CEO of that company I talked about earlier, Manpower. He sent me a really nice letter. And a couple months after I got a hold of him and I said, hey, can I buy you lunch?

So he invites me to his club and we met and we’re talking. And all of a sudden he gets to the point lunch. He’s like, so why are we having lunch again? You want to sell to me, don’t you? I’m like, I laughed at him and I said, no, actually my saying behind your back is I’m never selling to manpower. I came just to thank you for that letter. Fast forward to 2025. He is a near and dear friend of mine and we lunch and talk regularly. And yes, he’s a competitor, but

because of Mark, he brought us together and we’re good friends to this day. Isn’t that a cool story?

Anthony Codispoti (21:15)
I love that part of the story.

That’s a really cool story. How did you get through both the personal and the business side of that painful transition? I it’s both your best friend and your business partner gone in the blink of an eye.

Scott (21:30)
It changed my life. I, you know, like the greatest generation knows where they were when World War II started, right? Pearl Harbor, we know where we were at 9-11. Well, in my personal life, I know exactly where I was when I got that call that morning after the night before that he passed. It changed my life forever, not in a great way. ⁓ You know, I’m thankful that he didn’t suffer. He was in heaven before he hit the ground. ⁓

And it’s a loss that I’ll never get over. He was truly my best friend and one of my two most intimate partners at work. And I had to carry on. So I’ve semi adopted his four children. I try to stay in touch with them and, you know, recognize birthdays, anniversaries, stuff like that. So I’m carrying on for him. I can never replace him, but I can be a little bit of a stepish dad. His widow was a friend that I see regularly and take care of. And

There was a big, huge, huge void at work. He knew from family history that he wouldn’t be around forever. So he was already having that in the back of his head. So he was already starting in the very, very early stages of training what would be his replacement when he was gonna hopefully retire and have a few years. Didn’t work out that way. had other plans, but he had somebody in mind who is today our head of sales and has taken his place.

You know, she’ll never fill her shoes. She’s doing an amazing job, but you know, his shoes couldn’t be filled by me or a hundred other people. So it’s been a tough transition, but ⁓ you know, we’re a big company and nobody’s irreplaceable. And you know, we move forward and we’ve continued on and you know, we’re trying to be better for it.

Anthony Codispoti (23:16)
How long did it take ⁓ to make the transition into an ESOP, Employee Stock Ownership?

Scott (23:21)
Probably somewhere between six months and a year. We have an amazing CFO and my other partner who’s still alive today the operations side of QPS so there’s sales there’s ops and then there was me so the operations side of it him and our CFO took the ball and ran with it. They did all the heavy lifting. I didn’t have much to do with it. That’s not my thing. I’m a sales guy remember so they took it and I got to give

props to our CFO because he did this and he found a way to balance the middle. He was fair with Dan and myself as sellers and he didn’t take advantage of us but he was also fair to himself and all the fellow owners. He could have tilted it one way or the other just like when my partner died he had the value of the business to pay off Mark’s estate and I believe and I told him be very fair.

and do right by him. Don’t nip him in the bud and take a couple bucks. Don’t overpay. Just do what’s right. And we have an amazing guy that did that. So he did the same thing with ESOP. He helped with a team of attorneys and Dan, my other partner, to come up with an appropriate valuation. And it took six months to a year to really get it in place. And then 2020, ⁓ we converted to an employee-owned program. And now we’re our fifth year in, and it’s…

going amazingly well. Everybody loves owning the business. They have some say and they get, you know, I mean, who has, it’s basically kind of a retirement deal. Like, you know, back in the day when you would see pensions and stuff like that, that’s resurrected with ESOPs. ⁓ Every employee has a pension when they retire, you know, work and retire from QPS, they will have an amazing number. based on

how long they’re with the company and how well they continue to grow the company. It’s not unreasonable after 20 years and doubling the business if that’s what they do to retire as multimillionaires and that’s my goal. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (25:27)
Do you, since that time, since the ESOP transition has taken place, what if anything have you noticed in terms of operational difference? Has turnover decreased? Has throughput increased? What can you kind of put your finger on?

Scott (25:43)
Yeah, so in the life of an ESOP, we’re still at the early stages. So people are seeing value. I mean, there’s people with hundreds of thousands in their plan already, and there’s people with 10 or 20,000 and new employees have nothing. So it’s early yet. ⁓ But they understand the culture. We are very employee owner driven. ⁓ I think that, you know, because you have to also factor in that since we converted, we’ve had, I don’t know, COVID,

and our industry has been in a recession, there’s been some really wacky things that have happened to the outside world. So that all flows through to us. But absent that, I would absolutely think that it’s cut down on turnover. would absolutely think that, remember I said people bleak, keep us blue and they always act like they owned it. So now they actually do. So I don’t know that I see them working harder because they really work that hard to begin with. But now

They truly do own it. And I think that everybody’s stepped up a tiny bit and they act a little bit more like they own it. you know, we’re seeing it. And I think honestly, our industry has been in a recession for a couple of years. So it’s not just QPS, it’s been our entire staffing industry. I believe if it wasn’t for our employee owners, we’d be down much more than we actually are today. Can I prove that to you, Anthony? No, sir. But I absolutely believe that

we would be hurting more as a company than the industry is and we’re not as bad as the industry. And we’re hopefully pointed up. We’re looking for better days to come.

Anthony Codispoti (27:21)
So paint a picture for us, the services that you guys offer now, who your typical client is, the geographies that you serve. Give us a sort of state of the union for the company today.

Scott (27:32)
Sure, well let me start by saying every day robotics and automation takes away more jobs from us. Presently we have immigration issues. We only take people with two forms of ID. Doesn’t mean that they’re all legal, but we’re doing the legal thing and taking the two forms of ID. So we have immigration issues, we have automation issues, we have robotics issues, we have challenges in our industry. really, let me start by saying our company

truly needs to reinvent themselves and we’re in the process of trying to do that. There will always be factory jobs. Understand that. But it’s changing. It looks different. It’s a very different environment than 40 years ago. 40 years ago, we would literally sometimes have to take a pulse and I’m being a little facetious. And if there was a pulse there, we could send somebody to work to packet widgets or box boxes. There’s not a company that we work with today

that doesn’t have massive amounts of robotics and automation. We cannot send a dummy out anymore. Not that we ever did, but there is no such thing as general labor anymore. You walk into a factory today, they’re no longer dark, dirty or dangerous like they were 40 or 100 years ago. things have changed. We used to have temporary jobs where companies would call us and say, I need 10 people for six weeks for a project. That doesn’t happen anymore with

the increased intelligence with artificial intelligence and automation, there’s bubbles, if you will, in manufacturing and staffing. So when we get a call, it’s usually for long-term full-time people. So things have changed and continue to change, and we’ve got to evolve and kind of renew who we are. There’s other industries that maybe are better. Like we’re really, really close to getting into

data centers and that’s the big thing today is all the big box data centers from Google, Microsoft, AWS, whatnot. You know, we’re on the verge of getting in them and that’s gonna help reshape who we are. We’ll always have staffing, manufacturing, ⁓ labor in our book of business, but it’s gonna change. We’re gonna get more into engineering and contracting and we have to constantly up our skillset just like our employees have to.

come with a better skill set in order to be placed today.

Anthony Codispoti (30:02)
So when you talk about getting into data centers, engineers, ⁓ that kind of a thing, are these like ⁓ direct placements? it still, you’re going to be the employer of record and place them for medium to longer periods of time? What’s that model look like?

Scott (30:18)
Yes, both. We will do some drag tire. We’ll do some temp. The big thing, there’s no secret, everybody’s dying for electricians, electricians, electricians. So we need another half a million electricians in the next decade that we need to produce from the tech schools and high schools and stuff. Even the closest to general labor would be like cable wiring, but that’s in the electrical field. So the big thing is to help get them up and running wired.

and electrified. And then when we get that done, then we’ll find out where we can be of use to them going forward after they’re established. But again, so many are still building and in the building stage. So we’re in the early steps of those relationships, and hopefully they all evolve. And what’s interesting, remember when the iPhone first came out, we didn’t know what we didn’t know, we didn’t know that we needed that. We used to pick up a phone and actually talk on it. Now we hardly ever do. We’re at the point with the

data centers that they don’t know that they don’t need us and they’re learning that we are a resource for them like that first iPhone or smartphone. I think that we will become very intricate in the data center industry as that moves forward and we’ll see where it goes but it’s really still at the early stage for us and our industry in that industry.

Anthony Codispoti (31:39)
So when you say data center, I think of a more highly skilled, highly compensated role. And we mentioned like engineers, like a six figure kind of a role. Is my head in the right place? Is there need for people that would be at the lower end of the wage scale in those facilities as well?

Scott (31:58)
Sure, I mean, you know, they’re talking about millions of square feet and only hundreds, maybe thousand or thousands working there. So it’s not going to be tens of thousands when you scale how big the place is. It’s going to look empty. Okay. First and foremost, but there still needs to be somebody turn the lights on. Bad example because the lights are on 24 seven. There still needs to be janitors. There still needs to be maintenance cleaning.

Anthony Codispoti (32:24)
Building maintenance, yeah.

Scott (32:26)
⁓ you know, once you’re done wiring, you got to rewire, you know, because everything ages out so fast in that industry. So that computer that, you know, is getting that data center cloud going by the time you end with the 5000s computer in that data center, you’re going back to number one and replacing it because it’s aged out already. I mean, so I think there’ll be a cycle of constant change and upgrade and

repairs and replacements, a lot of work happening in those babies. So there’s still a lot that I don’t think even the Microsofts know and we’re all learning and we’ll see where it goes. But the point is we are and going to be a big part of that and that’s helping us to reinvent ourselves. Because again, the package you’re calling saying I need 10 people because I got widgets to package for the next six months, that doesn’t.

much exist anymore so we’re really truly trying to reinvent ourselves and stay current.

Anthony Codispoti (33:25)
Are there other elements of that reinvention that you’re looking at? We specifically talked about data centers. Something else there?

Scott (33:33)
you know, actually the next point I would say is looking within us. ⁓ You know, the AI is so live now that we’re doing recruiting and interviewing with bots, which amazes me. Okay, I’m an old dinosaur. I don’t want to talk to a robot, but most kids wouldn’t even know that they’re talking to a robot. So, you know, we’ll always need recruiters to make the end decision, but the initial screening is happening.

with a lot of AI. So we’re reinventing ourselves also internally with our technology. But back out in the field, it’s, you know, the data center is one piece, but there’s always going to be, you know, we do a lot in the food industry, there still needs to be people to take the pizza off the line and put it in a box. I mean, a robot can do most of that, but it still needs to get driven to a warehouse and stored and then pulled and put on a truck. So

You know, food is our biggest industry and thankfully, because we’re in Wisconsin, we’re a food industry heavy type deal. We do meat packing, we do food processing. So the food industry will always have plenty of humans in it, but not the way it happened in the past.

Anthony Codispoti (34:48)
more about the role that AI is currently playing and where you think it’s going in the next six to 12 months.

Scott (34:55)
⁓ Where’s the limit, you know, when it’s interviewing candidates, when it’s screening. Remember, I’ve been doing this for 40 years. So we have 40 years of data. have millions, and I’m not kidding, millions of applications within our system. It’s hard to sort through all those as a human being. The AI can sort. You need 10 engineers. It will screen and find 50 good resumes. It will then call.

those 50 people and interview them. The bot will interview those 50 and find the 10 good ones and then give those 10 to a living human being that will then take those 10 and put the bow on it and get them placed out at the customer. So I don’t know how much more we’ll use in AI from a recruiting standpoint than that, but that covers 75 % of the legwork when it does the initial screening and interviewing.

So nobody’s getting laid off at QPS, but you know, we won’t need as many new hires in the future because the robotics is handling it and people don’t even know that they’re getting interviewed by a robot. It’s that real and it’s only going to get better.

Anthony Codispoti (36:12)
And I’m curious how familiar you are with sort of the mechanics of it. When you say that the AI is actually placing the call. So it’s dialing my phone rings and the AI is saying, Hey, Anthony, we’ve got your database on file. This is QPS. We’d like to ask you a few questions to see if you’re interested in and qualify for this role. Is this how it’s taking place?

Scott (36:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

It’s

just like you and I talking right now. I don’t know that you’re not a robot. You could be asking you. You are no different. No disrespect. A robot could replicate and have questions and also being able to respond. Here’s how crazy it is. It will respond to me. So as the candidate, I start talking to you, the robot, and I get sidetracked a little bit. You know, I’m having a tough day. My girlfriend’s just arguing with me all the time. The robot will say,

Well, that’s unfortunate. I hope that you can work out your problems with your girlfriend. But can we get back to talking about your last job and the six months you had experience at ABC Company? Why did you leave after six months? Well, I left after six months because my girlfriend kept yelling at me that I was putting in so much overtime. Okay, I understand that. I mean, you couldn’t tell it’s in real time doing like you and I would do to shift and answer.

Anthony Codispoti (37:29)
It’s wild. Yeah.

Scott (37:33)
Because there’s nothing canned about it. It’s literally like we’re talking right now. It could talk about, you know, the Green Bay Packers, how we beat the Arizona Cardinals the other day. It could respond to that and then get you back on track. It will not ignore your question about the Packers, about the sun today, if it’s warm and sunny or snowy, and it’ll get you right back. But not in a strange way. Just like you and I, if you don’t like what I’m saying, you’re going to redirect me. Same thing, honest to God, Ann.

That’s how crazy it is. And it’s only going to get better if that’s possible.

Anthony Codispoti (38:04)
Yeah, that’s wild.

So what does your day-to-day involvement look like today, Scott?

Scott (38:11)
Scott’s day to day today, I’m executive chairman of the board. So we’ve literally brought in the next gen of leadership. As I mentioned earlier, we have an amazing CFO that we’ve had for a while. We have a CEO that’s been with us for about five years now. He’s doing an amazing job. We have a whole next gen of leadership that has taken over. So I’m at kind of 20,000 feet helping steer and guide, lead the board and lead the CEO. The CEO reports to me as well as the rest of the board and we…

give them direction. I’m still a sales guy, so occasionally I find an account or hear of an account and go out on a sales call, stop at a branch. ⁓ But the long and short of it is I’m not involved actively in the day to day. I actually have a fairly impactful job that I’m also working on. I’m trying to work with our president administration on coming up with some immigration solutions to

keep the hardworking people that are non criminals working. ⁓ Not a lot of people understand this, but if we could wave a magic wand and take out every illegal immigrant in our country, our country would shut down. They’re on roofs, they’re landscapers, they’re in factories, farms, fields. And I’m working from the top of the administration through a congressman that’s carrying this. We’re trying to come up with some legislation to

get some worker visas to stop the madness with the hardworking people that are here really trying to go to work every day. So that’s kind of part of my job right now, that and steering QPS, because we’re not in the best of times economically. We’re doing good, not doing great. So we need to get better. And as I mentioned earlier, I have a son that’s a professional race car driver, a daughter that’s an actress, and they each take a little of my time as I’m trying to make sure they don’t get eaten by sharks.

Anthony Codispoti (40:07)
⁓ Can you say more about the immigration reform that you’re working on? Particular details that you hope to be fleshed out? Maybe a timeline when we might see some changes?

Scott (40:19)
Sure.

⁓ Working on it every day. And we have a congressman in Wisconsin, Derek Van Orden, who has ⁓ taken the task upon himself and drafted an initial bill. And then there’s myself and a gaggle of other business leaders from DC through Wisconsin that have beat the bill up, if you will.

tried to do some puts and takes and we’re tweaking it and then we’ve got a follow-up meeting in a couple weeks and we’re gonna polish the bill up and then once Congress gets back in session at some point, hopefully soon, ⁓ they will take the bill. You know, the reality of this, we can’t do amnesty, we can’t do anything that is like throwing the rope over everything. So we’re gonna start by coming up with something more simple. What’s the most

security issue thing we have relative to immigration today and how it would affect us is the food source. So we’re going to tweak the bill to have it be in the food processing field only. So if we start with a very narrow line, maybe we can go more people on board. We had a meatpacking place in Omaha, Nebraska that had 200 people taken out that were good, hardworking people. The company shut down. That particular plant is no longer

cutting up cows and pigs. If we do that at scale and you go to your grocery store and you can’t find a steak in the refrigerated section of the grocery store, or we take too many people picking vegetables, or the farmers all rely on immigrants to milk the cows because it’s such a hard job. If you can’t get milk or potatoes or lettuce in your store, that becomes a national security issue.

We don’t want it to get to that point. So we’re going to start by aiming this bill around strictly food processing. Maybe we can all agree on that. And if we can get something like that through in some way, or form, and we show that it works, maybe then we can spread our wings a little further and go into other areas of industry that need immigrant.

Anthony Codispoti (42:32)
And do you see this because you mentioned worker visas. Do you you think that is sort of the approach that will be taken? OK.

Scott (42:39)
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. No amnesty,

no citizenship, just the ability to do it for two years and have it be the ability to be automatically renew as long as there’s a quick background check on you and you remain clean. Now, a misdemeanor, how many speeding and parking tickets I’ve gotten, you know, if you base it on that, I should have been deported, you know, I’m 61, so 50 years ago or something.

But outside of you know anything of substance, know Hopefully we check people out quick after two years and give them another two years and another two years and believe it or not If we seal the border and we don’t deport anyone Every year we become short by two and a half million people because think about that people age out You know people in farms factories fields. They die they get injured, you know, they age out need to retire

We literally need two and a half million new people a year. And again, Bill Gates’ kids, doesn’t matter the pay rate. You’re not going to get his kids. You’re not going to get my kids to go work in a farm, a factory, or pick apples in the state of Washington. Doesn’t matter the pay rate. There are certain jobs that Americans just typically don’t want. And that’s where we need to be able to have other resources to help us out.

Anthony Codispoti (44:02)
Well, it might be fascinating to have you back on in a few months with some hopefully positive updates on all this because it’s top of mind for everybody.

Scott (44:12)
It sure is. And this is really my number one thing right now outside of QPS and God and my family. I have taken this on and I feel, because can you imagine a hardworking person doesn’t know if he’s going to come home to his family that he’s lived in a house with his kids for 20 years, never committed a crime. That guy, just because he’s not got everything processed with paperwork, isn’t assured to come home at night. How scary that has to be for hardworking, legit

And I’m trying to slowly but surely address that. And I hope that we can figure that out because it’s a sad thing right now. And to be selfish, we need these people. really, really do need. Our country could not function there that ingrained in our country. Again, roughing, landscaping, concrete work, farms, factories, fields. We have them everywhere. And the good heart working ones we’ve got to take care of. And that’s my mission right now.

Absolutely, yes,

Anthony Codispoti (45:11)
What’s the biggest point of resistance that you’re running into with all of this?

Scott (45:18)
people in the administration that don’t understand the real world and think that we can wave a magic wand, get rid of them all, and there’s just plenty of people sitting on their couches. You you look at, so back into the labor industry, ⁓ the workforce participation rate, it’s at like 67 % right now, and that sounds low, but that takes people from 15 to 85. If I’m 15, I probably should be in school.

If I’m 85, I probably should be, you know, at home in a nursing home or something. When you look at the prime workforce participation rate, that’s at about 90%. There’s not a lot of room there. The point is, there’s not millions of people sitting on the sidelines going, if it wasn’t for that immigrant, I could be working. There’s jobs for everybody. And

those for the immigrants too. So if we could look at it more accurately, we never look at prime workforce participation rate, which tells a better picture. That’s from 22 to 65, I believe. We just look at the workforce participation rate, which is 15 to 85. It’s a stupid number because it makes it look like we’re lazy and sitting around doing nothing. And that’s actually not accurate.

Anthony Codispoti (46:39)
What’s your superpower, Scott?

Scott (46:42)
⁓ I have a really innate ability to read people, which has helped me to find really good people, hire really good people. And my secret sauce at QPS was finding and hiring really good people and taking really good care of them. I somehow know how to read people. I’m not that smart, but that’s been my gift from God is being able to read people pretty quickly. Not always, I’m not perfect, but pretty good at it.

Anthony Codispoti (47:11)
We talked about the challenge of losing your best friend and your business partner several years ago. I wonder if maybe there’s another life challenge, maybe even something on the professional side specifically that you want to get into, sort of explain how you got through it, what you learned, and maybe even why you look back on that time with a bit of gratitude.

Scott (47:34)
Well, what’s interesting is I am a serial entrepreneur. ⁓ I presently have two highly successful businesses that I’m chairman of the board. There’s another one that I’m involved in, Complex Security Solutions, Security Software, Hardware, and QPS. But if you look over the last 40 years, I started kind of like Mr. JCPenney.

I had been involved in probably six or eight other companies that were not successful for one reason or the other. Our CEO likes to pick on me. I apparently like the peas. I’ve been in printing pizza packaging placements, the good one, ⁓ but there’s been some businesses that started with peas that haven’t worked for me. looking back, I’ve had some failures in life and

What I’m grateful for is the people that I surrounded myself with. I had QPS and obviously my other business complex, honest, hardworking people that never ever cheated me and cared about the business, cared about me because the businesses that fail, many of them were involved around cheating and my lack of experience in not doing it right. So I’m not gonna blame everybody else. I have to take responsibility on those failures, but the whole package, the full

thing at QPS, having really good people, taking really good care of them and having them really care about the business and treat it like it was their own. And it is their own now because I have plenty of failures in my life and most people do.

Anthony Codispoti (49:13)
And so through those failures, I’m going to guess that you’ve gotten even better. You’ve enhanced that ability to read people like, ⁓ I made a mistake with that one. I’m going to make a mental note of, know, what may have been sort of the red flags early on. And as you look back on all of that, what are some key red flags that maybe you didn’t notice when you were first getting started that you’re more attuned to now?

Scott (49:39)
big time. That’s an easy one. ⁓ You have to earn trust. You can’t be granted it and then prove it. And I was taught that by our forever CFO that was my cousin that said I wasn’t ever going to make it. She’s the one that said never.

trust me, even talking about herself, always have checks and balances to keep me in line and she never stole and she never would. But she was trying to teach me a life lesson and she actually found a couple of those indiscretions in some of the other businesses by just caring about me and looking where she wasn’t asked to look and finding things. you know, looking back, I trusted people before they proved to me that

They could be trustworthy and they took advantage of that and I hadn’t set up checks and balances to keep them from, you know, the best way to create a cheat is to give them an opportunity. But if you have checks and balances in place, we’re all on it, you know, typically we’re all honest, hardworking human beings, but we have a sinful nature. If you give me a chance to cheat, sometimes people will. If you don’t want me to cheat, make sure there’s checks and balances and that will keep even this.

honest people honest. So the big thing is to have checks and balances and who you work with and what you do forever, but especially early on until you get a level of trust that becomes earned, not just granted early on because you selected them to work with for some reason.

Anthony Codispoti (51:11)
So checks and balances have systems in place that make it much harder for people to follow that sinful nature. What about personality traits that you might notice where you’re like, ⁓ that man or woman, I’m gonna keep a closer eye on there, because they said or did something that, or they’re acting in such a way that makes me a little bit more suspicious of them.

Scott (51:35)
Yeah, so one example, I had somebody that eventually found out he was addicted to gambling. And to my ignorance, he was a customer for a long time and had become a friend and said, let’s break away and start a business competing with this customer, which looking back probably shouldn’t have done, but I did it because he said he was mistreated by his employer. And we started a business and I let him run it. Now that makes sense. I also gave him the checkbook to write checks and he wrote checks to his

gambling people to pay off his bills. So everything would have went correctly if I would have been intelligent enough to have checks and balances, meaning, you you can run the place, absolutely, but you can’t write the checks too. So, you know, as much as it was on him for stealing, shame on me for giving them that opportunity. That was early on. And one of the lessons I learned was you need checks and balances, because maybe that would be a strong business of mine today.

if I didn’t give him that opportunity and shame on me, but that was a lesson learned is having checks and balances. Don’t give them the power and the checkbook. It’s a tough combination to put the two together.

Anthony Codispoti (52:43)
How

about some daily habits, practices that you engage in that either help get your day started or keep you on track as you go?

Scott (52:55)
You know, I start every day on my hands and knees thanking God for everything and praying and I get up early and start working right away. You know, I get the shower out of the way and get going right away. And, you know, I still work hard. I’m still going from seven in the morning. I refuse to go a minute after seven at night. Twelve is enough for me. ⁓ You think I’d be at the point where I could start enjoying life, but apparently I’m wired in the way that

My dad taught me old German, just keep working. And apparently I like what I’m doing because I keep going every day. I’m right now in North Carolina. ⁓ My son, again, being a professional race car driver, if you want to make it NASCAR, you got to live in Charlotte. So we bought a place down here. So periodically throughout the year, we pack everybody and everything up and come down here for a couple of months. So I’m working down here as hard as I work at my home base in Wisconsin. And next week, when I get back to Wisconsin,

We’ll pick it right back up and keep working. I got plenty on my plate to do.

Anthony Codispoti (53:56)
If you were gonna recommend a favorite book or a podcast that’s been really helpful to you in your career arc, what would that be?

Scott (54:07)
Well, you told me to be honest and you told me to share my soul here. I’ve never watched a podcast in my life. So I can’t recommend any there. Sorry. You know, I still get four newspapers a day. Again, I’m an old dinosaur that I’m trying to stay up on it, but I like the York Times, Wall Street Journal for Entertainment USA Today, and then from Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Those are my four papers I read every day. ⁓ You know,

Anthony Codispoti (54:24)
What are your newspapers? What do you like to read?

Scott (54:37)
Again, I told you I’m not that smart. I’m not a huge book reader. I read the Bible over the course of every couple of years. Beyond that, I can’t tell you a book that has inspired me. I’ve read some cool true story, but as far as from a business standpoint, it was all learning in the trenches. mean, early on, what I didn’t share is we had some mentors. My partner, Mark, the guy that passed away, he was an amazing networker. He had a competitor early on that mentored us.

why would competitor would I have no idea but that’s how talented Mark was that he found somebody and the guy liked them and helped us. you know, we didn’t have books. mean, there were books, but we didn’t study books. had the real world that we learned in and I guess my thing is, I pay attention and I learn on the job on the go. And I try not to make the mistake more than three or four times and I learned my lesson and kind of go from there. So again, going back to school, wasn’t

great scholastically, which transitioned to the real world. You know, not that I don’t read because I had to read Derek’s bill, obviously. So I read when I have to. But, you know, honestly, I’m fairly busy. Do I have time for a 400 page how to do business book? First of all, I’m too old to do it. If I haven’t figured it out yet, I’m in trouble. you know, I have had multiple people tell me that

Anthony Codispoti (55:58)
going to say you should write your own. If anything, you should be writing the book.

Scott (56:05)
I have a pretty unique story because, you know, as you’re aware, the other thing that I had a little success in in life is I became a professional race car driver. made it to Indianapolis and Indy cars and sports cars, did the 24 hours of Daytona. I did get a chance to race. I’ve had an amazing life. I’ve been blessed beyond belief. And the cool thing in life now is I’m all about giving away, you know, I want to die broke because the last time I

was informed, I can’t take it with me. you know, I’m really trying to be as charitable as I can and give away in my lifetime, rather than after I’m gone, somebody else giving my stuff away. So I’ve had multiple people say that, you know, there’s probably a cool story to be written and maybe someday somebody will with or without my help.

Anthony Codispoti (56:54)
Now, you had mentioned multiple times early on that your son is a professional race car driver. I think I missed the part where we’re talking about you going for your own stem. Where did that fit into the whole career space?

Scott (57:07)
Well, when I was a little boy, my mom and dad, my dad had a lawn and garden dealership business and they came across some motorcycles and snowmobiles. So think about me at six or seven racing competitively snowmobiles and motorcycles. Then our family was very middle-class, grew up, went away from it. And after I grew up and got QPS going about five years in, I started to get a little bit of an itch beyond entrepreneurial. And I had friends, one of our

other early customers that’s still a customer to this date, they owned an IndyCar team and actually their claim to fame, their family won the Indy 500 three times in their life. So they had connected me with a team and I did some open wheel racing as a 25 year old and I started doing it just like a weekend warrior. I started winning and one thing led to another. They connected me with an IndyCar team that

hired me to race for a couple years back in 2003 through 2005. And then in 2006, I broke my neck in a street car. And that ended my IndyCar career. And then I did about a decade in sports cars. Again, think of the most famous race. One of the most famous races in the country is the 24 hours of Daytona every February. And you got a guest at Daytona. I did that like 10 years straight from 2007 to 17. And along the way, I had a son and

He started racing when he was four years old and he has had a steering wheel in his hand since six months old. And at four, he was racing competitive go-karts and he never stopped. By the time he was 12, he was in a full body, full size stock car. And he started racing in NASCAR at 18, the day he turned 18. And today he’s still in the championship hunt in the 2025 season to win the championship in NASCAR.

Anthony Codispoti (59:05)
That’s phenomenal. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?

Scott (59:08)
Apparently not. It didn’t hurt that

I live on 100 acres and we built a half mile paved racetrack at home. So he got to, you know, after school practice in the backyard. Most kids don’t get that, but that was one of his benefits. So sure. So we had him and again, nothing normal in my family. I can’t have a daughter that’s an accountant or an engineer. She’s an actress and her first movie is coming out starring Mel Gibson in theaters, I think December 5th. So I’ve got it.

Anthony Codispoti (59:16)
Lots of practice time.

What’s

it called?

Scott (59:37)
⁓

I believe it’s called The Hunting Season starring Mel Gibson. She started with a small part. She’s already got four movies under her and four more lined up over the next year. So we have two budding professional people in our family. Sam Mayer, yeah, he’s got quite the social media following, Instagram, X, Facebook, et cetera. And my daughter is Sarah Mayer, the actress.

Anthony Codispoti (59:52)
and what are their names so we can look out for them.

Terrific.

So Scott, I’ve just got one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do a few quick things. ⁓ First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Scott, he’s given us permission to give out his personal email address, which is his first initial S and his last name, Mayor, M-A-Y-E-R, so S, Mayor, at qpsemployment.com. And obviously their website for the company qpsemployment.com.

Scott (1:00:10)
Okay.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:30)
Also as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for the company, reach out to addbackbenefits.com. And finally, if you’ll take just a moment to leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, we will be forever grateful. Okay, last question for you, Scott. You and I reconnect one year from today and you’re celebrating something big. What is that big thing you hope to be celebrating one year from now?

Scott (1:00:58)
Absolutely immigration reform, 100%, nothing close.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:03)
Scott Mayer, QPS Employment. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Scott (1:01:10)
Thank you, Anthony. hope six months from now you have me back to talk about immigration reform or something. So I’m here for you. And I can’t wait to hear more about your business. So look forward to talking to you about that soon.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:16)
I’m already looking forward to it.

All right, let’s make it happen. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.