Friday, July 11, 2008

The Mover

Robichaud aims for a successful beat at Percussion

By Jay Rizoli, Special to Mass High Tech

For someone designated a “Mover,” Michael Robichaud hadn’t done much moving until recently.

Robichaud, recently named chief executive officer of Percussion Software Inc. in Woburn, is joining his second company since 1987.

The University of New Hampshire grad and former CEO of placement company Stride & Associates Inc., spent more than two decades in the recruiting arena but initially set his sights on a vocation closer to home.

“I wanted to be a teacher and a coach, just like my dad,” said Robichaud, whose father taught biology and earth science and coached football and track at Concord-Carlisle High School in Concord, Mass. “I was a history major, and I really thought that if I could land a job as a teacher, make $35,000 a year and be teaching folks and coaching, that would be it.”

But along the way he changed his mind, and that was it for his teaching career. “Most of my buddies were in engineering or business, and most of them had jobs. I saw a print ad in The (Boston) Globe for recruiting, and I didn’t know what that was but I called. And I did that from 1986 to 2007.”

Robichaud began working as a recruiter in Boston and in 1987 founded Mass Futures with three people, focusing exclusively on IT and contingency staffing. Mass Futures became Stride, which developed into a national multibrand corporation with 25 offices in 13 cities. For his part, Robichaud was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000 and one of the Boston Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 that same year.

Like many IT-focused businesses, Stride saw profound growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s before things started to turn. While they closed offices, Stride stayed in 13 cities “because it was important to stay plugged into that local base. I wanted to make sure during that recessionary time to keep that footprint.”

And among his side projects was investing in and helping develop companies such as Percussion, a developer of web content management software for marketers. As a founding shareholder and member of the Percussion board, he says, “I had a decent view into it, and a lot of what attracted me is what I saw at Stride: the people, who are very dedicated, and the platform. We have 200 customers that continue to re-up with us.”

So the Stride founder handed over his still-thriving company to a new generation and set out on the next phase. “It’s definitely reset the odometer a bit, which is good,” he said. “I’ve served the industry providing A-list talent to clients, and now the shoe’s on the other foot. It’s different when you’re placing someone than when you’re making that decision to hire someone.”

 

Jay Rizoli is a freelance writer in Franklin.