Drake & Company President Leanne Starr, 70, may not care much for sewing buttons on shirts, but when it comes to running a 32-year-old employment agency, she has sown hundreds of successful job matches across the region.
The button story remains a family joke. “We were the only kids who went to school with buttons put on by a buttoneer!” laughed Kelly Starr-King, Leanne’s daughter and now the company’s CEO. Her mother, she said, was known to use a curved needle, tent thread, and even accidentally sewed some of Kelly’s girl scout badges upside down onto the uniform’s sash.
“Thank God you didn’t aspire to be a seamstress!” Kelly chided her mother.
But there was more in store for the Starr family matriarch. Early on, as a child in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., Leanne Starr thought she would be a nurse — in an OB ward. Instead, “I met my husband and I became the OB ward!” she laughed. Together the couple had two other children besides Kelly: Kim, now VP of the legal division at Drake, and son Steve, a bartender and fishing guide in Florida who has shown no interest in the family business.
In 1965, Leanne and husband Gary, an investment broker, moved to Madison. A stay-at-home mother, Starr worked when she could, finding jobs at Welcome Wagon and also Rohdes’ (pronounced Road-ees) Steakhouse before landing a position at a staffing company. “I decided I really loved the business,” she said, and she became manager two years later.
In 1978, Gary and Leanne formed their own employment company as a 60-40 partnership in favor of Leanne. At the time, Leanne was reading a book about a favorite travel destination of theirs, Chicago’s Drake Hotel. “I didn’t want to name my business, ‘Starr,’” she said. “I wanted to be different, and the Drake was always so elegant.” Hence the name: Drake & Company.
The business opened on Madison’s Capitol Square, sans furniture. “I was by myself,” Starr recalled, sitting on the floor, and using window ledges for writing surfaces before the desks arrived. “I just got on the phone and called some employers, then I put an ad in the paper and began hiring staff — three at a time.” She wasn’t interested in the financials — yet. “I can’t stand debt, and I knew there was debt,” Starr admitted. “I told my husband not to tell me what our finances were until we were in the black.” That happened three months later.
Through the years, Starr admits that the dynamics of a family business have not always been easy. “We try not to bring disagreements into the office,” she said. “We have a therapist, and she makes us listen to each other. We usually all end up laughing and going out to dinner afterwards.”
Starr credits the company’s success to referral business, customer service, and the ability to adapt to change, but at times she longs for simpler days, when the industry was less cutthroat. “Kelly and Kim would hand-deliver resumes around the Square back then,” she reminisced. “Fax machines were new, and clients trusted our phone conversations. Now, because of technology, we get thousands of resumes online. What can you possibly do with them all?”
While technology has increased efficiencies, it hasn’t been the only significant change. “Years ago, when Madison was recognized as a great place to live, businesses started looking at the city — which was a great thing. We have unbelievable talent here. But many companies have also been acquired. It’s not the same Madison. In many ways, I really love it, and in others, I long for the 1980s,” she said.
Starr’s husband passed away in 2001, and she now enjoys a reduced schedule — the benefit of trusting her daughter’s handling of the business. When she can, she escapes to Florida and kayaks with her son through the mangrove trees.
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