AP Professionals joins CNY staffing marketplace

SALINA — AP Professionals, a Rochester–based staffing firm, is now into its fourth full month of operation at the Central New York office it opened in late May.

The firm specializes in placing accounting, finance, human resources, and administrative professionals on both a direct hire and contract basis.

AP Professionals on May 29 announced it had named Kimberly Parker as director of its new office at 220 Salina Meadows Parkway in the town of Salina, just north of Syracuse.

Since its inception, AP Professionals has placed more than 7,200 candidates through its offices in Rochester and Buffalo, the firm said in the May 29 news release.

“We wanted to bring that great news and that solid reputation from the company into the Syracuse market as well and hopefully to expand further to Albany [as well],” Parker says in an interview with the Business Journal News Network on Aug. 29.

 “We’ve been very successful out of the gate [in Central New York] and have made numerous placements on the temporary contract basis here in Syracuse as well as on direct-hire placements,” says Parker. She declined to provide specific numbers on local placements.

Parker’s already-established client relationships helped the firm find its operating space along Salina Meadows Parkway, which it secured in March, she says.

Parker had previously placed a candidate in the accounting office of the John Lynch Company, which manages the Salina Meadows complex. She used that connection to help land the office space.

“This office space provided a central location between the Thruway and [Interstate] 81 for everyone to get to

In her role as office director, Parker handles business development and works with local companies that are seeking talent and those candidates who are seeking job placements in permanent or contract positions in human resources, accounting and finance, or administrative positions.

“So, working on both of those sides, we’re trying to make a custom fit between those candidates that are looking for work and the types of companies they want to work for,” says Parker.

About AP Professionals
Joseph Kreuz founded AP Professionals in Buffalo in 1993.

“AP started out as being Advantage Professionals and over time, the company shortened the name to AP Professionals,” says Parker.

Mark Pautler then opened AP’s Rochester office in 1996. He now serves as the firm’s majority owner.

A few years later, Jerry Tenenbaum, a Syracuse native, moved to Scottsdale, Ariz. and opened AP’s third office in 1998.

Parker’s background
Parker relocated her family to Central New York from Massachusetts in June 2008 to work in a job for National Grid.

She had previously served as a credit and collections director for KeySpan Corp.

When National Grid purchased KeySpan, the firm wanted to centralize its U.S. operations for credit and collections in Syracuse and offered Parker a promotion.

“I became the commercial-collections manager for all of U.S. National Grid and relocated my family here,” she says.

Parker remained with National Grid for three more years before returning to the professional-staffing business, an industry she had worked in when in Massachusetts, she says.

Parker worked as a staffing manager at Accountemps before joining AP Professionals, according to her LinkedIn profile at the time of the May 29 news release. Accountemps is a Robert Half International, Inc. (NYSE: RHI) company that places accounting and finance professionals on a temporary basis. It has a Syracuse office.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com