2012 W. Curtis Strube Small Business Award Finalist: Midwest Metro

While businesses in many industries were hit hard by the recession, it provided a platform for Midwest Metro to expand.

The company, acquired by Charles and Anne Nelson in 2008, helps its mortgage-note-holding clients preserve and protect properties in foreclosure.

Charles Nelson said the company posted revenues of $9.4 million in 2011, up from $7.8 million in 2010. Nelson projects the company will surpass $10 million in annual revenues for 2012.

Among its services, Midwest Metro handles evictions, winterizes vacant homes and implements initial security measures when properties first become vacant to prevent squatters. “That has led us from concentrating initially on preservation to presentation,” said Nelson, the company’s vice president.

When the Nelsons purchased Midwest Metro, the company’s service footprint covered three states and part of two others, but with the latest additions of Ohio and Indiana, the company now serves eight states.

The combination of service and territorial expansion, as well as a concentration on targeting potential clients at industry trade conferences has expanded Midwest Metro’s client orders 60 percent to 96,000 in 2011, up from 60,000 in 2010, Nelson said.

Midwest Metro has 29 full-time employees, 11 of whom were added in the past year. It also works with three local seasonal employees and a network of subcontractors that fluctuates between 125 and 175. Those subcontractors handle numerous duties, Nelson said, including maintaining more than 8,000 lawns during the summer.

In 2011, Midwest Metro was named one of the Ozarks’ fastest-growing companies, ranking third among Springfield Business Journal’s Dynamic Dozen honorees. At the time, Nelson said the company’s client roster includes companies such as BAC Field Services and CoreLogic.

Nelson pointed to the employees and subcontractors as key drivers in the company’s growth. “It all goes back to the people we have working for us,” Nelson said. “We’ve been blessed with quality people who can meet time constraints; it’s because of them that we continue to be afforded new opportunities.”

Click here to read more about the 2012 W. Curtis Strube Small Business Award.