Barrett chairman Sherertz has died

William Sherertz, the chairman and chief executive officer of Barrett Business Services Inc., died unexpectedly on Thursday morning, the Vancouver-based company announced. Sherertz, 64, had been hospitalized recently for treatment of respiratory failure.

The board of directors of the company, which provides temporary staffing services as well as human resource needs for small- to medium-sized businesses, has appointed Chief Operating Officer Michael Elich as interim president and CEO.

In remembering Sherertz as a straight-shooter who had a talent for making complex ideas easy to understand, Elich said Friday he once asked Sherertz what he wanted his legacy to be. Sherertz replied that he’d taken the company public and had built it into a large operation, Elich said, so those important projects had already been checked off. “I just want to be the best,” Elich recalled Sherertz telling him.

Sherertz had been CEO of Barrett and a director of the company since 1980, according to the company’s annual report. He was appointed president in 1993. He took Barrett public in 1994. Sherertz also served as chairman of the board of directors.

In addition to making Elich interim president and CEO, the board appointed longtime outside director Anthony Meeker as chairman of the board. Meeker served for seven years as treasurer of Oregon state government and retired in 2003 as a managing director of Victory Capital Management Inc.

During a conference call Friday, Meeker said the company has “lost our friend and mentor Bill Sherertz. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bill’s family and friends.” Meeker said he believes he knows what Sherertz would have wanted: “He would say to us, the ship is going in the right direction. Keep it going.”

In a statement, Meeker said Sherertz built “an exceptional executive management team with long tenures at the company” and that team, led by Elich, has overseen the daily operations of Barrett since Sherertz’s original illness in mid-2008.

In October, the company reported third-quarter profits of $3.7 million, or 36 cents per diluted share. That compared with $2.9 million, or 28 cents per diluted share, during the same period a year ago. The company’s third-quarter revenue was $73.9 million, up 12.8 percent, year-over-year. The company will discuss 2010 fourth-quarter and annual financial results in early February.

Last fall, the company was recognized as the 2010 National Employer of the Year by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Barrett was honored for its work with WorkSource Oregon, providing training and resources to unemployed Oregonians.

Elich, who has been with the company for nearly 10 years, said Sherertz has left Barrett Business Services on a strong foundation built on core principles: Take care of your customers. Keep it simple. Do what you say you’re going to do. That’s the kind of culture he leaves behind, Elich said, and that’s what will move Barrett forward “and make us an even greater company.”

Before joining Barrett, Elich was chief operating officer of Skills Resource Training Center, a staffing services company with offices in Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

The company’s board of directors issued a statement Friday saying “we are shocked and greatly saddened by the passing of Bill Sherertz. He was a visionary leader, a devoted father to his children and a good friend. The company’s directors and employees, as well as the many people he worked with and mentored over the years, mourn his loss. We extend our sympathies to his family, particularly his wife and four children, who meant the world to him.”

Sherertz is survived by his wife, Kim, his son, Cole, and his daughters, Elizabeth, Alex and Sarah.