Entrepreneurial success followed father’s advice

MORE THAN WORDS: Emily S. Harrington, right, president and CEO of Qualified Resources International, has worked to carry on the entrepreneurial spirit instilled in her by her late father. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
MORE THAN WORDS: Emily S. Harrington, right, president and CEO of Qualified Resources International, has worked to carry on the entrepreneurial spirit instilled in her by her late father. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

A father’s dying words propelled Emily S. Harrington toward becoming the entrepreneur she’d always wanted to be.
Harrington, 58, the president and CEO of Cranston-based Qualified Resources International, is one of nine siblings, most of whom, like their father, Marcial Samson, have chosen to run their own businesses. A native of Manila, Harrington came to the U.S. at 16, but moved back and forth between Rhode Island and the Philippines, before settling in the early 1990s at Citizens Bank.
Life, however, had other plans for her.
Marcial Samson had been not only a sporting-goods manufacturer and mayor in Caloocan, a city within metro Manila, but also a prisoner in the mid-1970s under the martial law declared by former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos. He knew the meaning of trials and hard work, his daughter says.
Gravely ill in the early 1990s, he visited his daughter in the U.S., until Jan. 29, 1992, when she flew to Manila to be at his bedside. He died early the next morning.
“We talked a lot,” Harrington recalled. “He … just encouraged me to try and start a business, and [said] that he believed in me. That was very important. It was motivating. I thought about it on the way home, and resigned within a week” from Citizens Bank.
At the bank, where she was first a loan-installment credit manager and then an assistant treasurer, Harrington had noticed that Citizens used a lot of temporary workers. She wanted to start a business that would provide short-term and permanent placement services to direct-hire, light industrial and office-support staff in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
The idea of being an entrepreneur was “always in me,” she told Providence Business News. That motivation, coupled with her father’s staunch support and her own high energy and perseverance, led her to seek out the U.S. Small Business Association’s help in crafting a business plan. She also had the support of her husband, Timothy Harrington, whom she had married in 1977. But the launching of the first incarnation of her business, Qualified Resources Inc., was not easy.
Refused by bank after bank for a business loan, she finally secured one for $25,000 through Fleet Bank. By 1994, her husband, who has expertise in marketing and sales, joined her in the business.
“That period of time, light industrial was growing rapidly,” she said. “There was a lot of opportunity. I worked very hard. With my strong connections in the Philippine community [in Rhode Island], I was able to service my new clients. Being new, I was very responsive and able to establish that I can definitely provide good service to many companies.”
The company grew rapidly, and by 1998 was featured in Inc. Magazine as one of the country’s fastest-growing firms. In 2000, the company realized $14 million in annual revenue. Recognition followed, with Harrington being honored with the SBA Entrepreneurial Success Award for Rhode Island, New England and the U.S.
By 2002, author Lausanne C. Lee featured Harrington in the book, Self-Made Millionaire Women Entrepreneurs.
By 2004, a global staffing company known as Staff Service in Tokyo approached the Harringtons and bought 80 percent of the business. Emily Harrington stayed on as a consultant, she said, a difficult decision that nonetheless enabled her to spend more time with her then-teenage daughters, Laura and Lindsay. Tim Harrington also stayed on as president.
Sold to Staff Service as Qualified Resources International LLC, the company continued to operate successfully, but by 2008, Tim Harrington became seriously ill and had to separate from the company, Emily Harrington said. “It was a trying time,” Emily Harrington said. “That experience really fueled us to move forward and never give up.”
In 2009, as Tim Harrington recovered, the Harringtons sold the remaining 20 percent of the company, but negotiated to retain the corporate name and, while losing the workforce, also retained ownership of the original building in Cranston.
The company became Qualified Resources International Inc., and rebuilt. Three years later, with Tim Harrington as chairman and Emily Harrington as president and CEO, the company was doing business in Bellingham, Mass., and Manila, as well as Rhode Island.
The firm earned $5 million in annual revenue in 2012, Emily Harrington said, and branched out from light industrial to place staff as engineers, accountants, bankers and salespeople, she said. She expects to exceed $5 million in revenue for 2013.
Tim Harrington says his wife’s go-getter attitude and hard work contributed to her success.
“People we bring in, many can’t keep up with her, but they try to emulate her, they look up to her, they catch on,” he said.
Mentoring, in fact, is one of Emily Harrington’s favorite ways to relate to employees. In fact, their daughter, Laura Naughton, now 27, works at the company managing recruitment, and has her mother’s strong work ethic, Emily Harrington says.
“I want to help the young team I have today,” she noted, “mentor them, train them and help them succeed.”
Passion fuels her drive, while her weakness may be expecting that same dedication and hard work from those around her, she said.
While running a business is challenging anywhere and expensive in Rhode Island, she said, the rewards keep her going.
“We are very innovative in finding ways to stay in business and grow,” she said, “and we have fun with it as well.” •

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