Omaha Business Hall of Fame Inductee: Larry Courtnage

Larry Courtnage, Owner and Chairman – C&A Industries, Inc.

“It’s all about integrity and taking care of the customer. The customer comes first.”

He grew up in small-town Nebraska; learned in a small, one-room schoolhouse; and helped work the small family farm. But Larry Courtnage has always embraced big thinking – the very type of thinking that inspired a young salesman to launch a one-man recruiting firm in 1969.

“At the time, the recruiting industry was just evolving. … I thought it would be a great fit for me with my sales experience,” he said. “It was me, my desk, my telephone and the Yellow Pages in the phone book. The Rolodex and 3×5 cards became very important.”

Almost 50 years later, that basement enterprise has grown into C&A Industries, the nation’s 28^th largest staffing firm and an eight-time honoree as one of the Best Places to Work in Omaha™. The C&A umbrella now covers seven different affiliates, including Aureus Group, Celebrity Staff, AurStaff, FocusOne Solutions and Aureus Medical Group, one of the largest healthcare staffing firms in the nation.

“We have people working in all 50 states,” Courtnage said.

He credits the company’s success to the hiring and intensive training of talented employees, working as a team toward common goals, and to embracing emerging technology.

“I always felt the winner was going to be the person who uses technology,” Courtnage said. “In the 1970’s, I was one of the first people in Omaha, Neb., to have a fax machine. We were one of the first ones to use computers.”

Today, Courtnage continues to serve as C&A’s chairman, but he is no longer “in the trenches.” He leaves that to CEO Scot Thompson and the next generation of C&A talent, including his daughter Vicki Witovski and his stepsons Craig and Mark Wolf.

 “I feel family is what life is all about,” he said. “We’re very fortunate to have all of our family involved in the business.”

Courtnage’s wife, Kathy, serves as C&A’s vice-chair and, he said, an inspiration: “We have a sales award named after her that we give to the best sales person of the year. It’s called the Kathy Wolf Award.”

Despite all the professional success, life has not been without personal tragedy. Courtnage’s daughter Kim suffered from mental illness and, at the age of 24, took her own life. The loss led the Courtnages to found and fund The Kim Foundation. The non-profit works to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental illness, ensure communities have necessary resources, and connect those impacted by mental illness to the help they need to live a fulfilled life.

Beyond The Kim Foundation, Courtnage sets an example for C&A employees through his civic outreach, including various service clubs, the Masonic Fraternity, the Tangier Shriner Center, the Scottish Rite, and as a Bellevue University board member.

“I’ve found that helping people reach their goals empowers me with a positive attitude and the motivation to think bigger and do more,” Courtnage said.

Always striving for better. Always thinking a little bigger.

“I firmly believe that if you have faith in God, a strong belief in yourself and the right goal, you can get into what I call the ‘can do box.’ In the ‘can do box,’ you can move mountains.”