`Retired,' Kesler becomes active as venture capitalist

Jane Bennett

Old habits die hard for an entrepreneur like Delores Kesler.

The woman who built the Jacksonville-based, New York Stock Exchange company now known as Modis Professional Services Inc., is testing the complex waters of venture capital investing.

During the second quarter of the year, her financial and investment organization, Adium Inc., will put $1 million in an existing company that within two to three years will go public or be sold.

That is, if things work out as well as they did with ThermoView Industries Inc. -- a company that designs, manufactures, markets and installs new and replacement custom vinyl windows and other home-improvement products.

Kesler's Louisville, Ky.-based developmental capital company, The Founders Group Inc., invested in ThermoView, which is now traded over the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol TVII and is selling around $8 a share.

Kesler is a look-you-straight-in-the-eye, tell-it-like-it-is conversationalist, but, like most venture capitalists, she will not talk about the ventures her companies are capitalizing.

Venture capitalists -- institutional or individual lenders who buy a substantial piece of an existing business with the intention of eventually taking the company public or selling it -- do not want "others on the street" to know what products or services they are financing, Kesler said.

Homework is very important in the venture capital field, she said.

"You have to identify sources who know more than you do about the product," Kesler said. "You have to be able to go to people with the expertise. But most of all you have to know the management. Those are the people that are going to be married to the company."

Most of Kesler's time is divided between business and philanthropic interests.

When she is in town, she works from an office in 9700 Philips Highway. The $1.25 million, 25,000-square-foot building houses the corporate headquarters of ATS Services Inc., a staffing firm operated by Kesler's children, Deborah Pass and Mark Pass.

"But I am retired," Kesler said. "I made up my mind to leave Modis in 1992, and even though it took me until 1998, I left, and I'm loving it."

Kesler is a local legend. A Jackson-ville native, she was raised on the Northside and graduated from Jacksonville University. Her father, who worked for Southern Bell telephone company, started several unsuccessful businesses, including a poultry farm.

Kesler founded her temporary employment company, then called ATS Services Inc. in 1977 and built it into a $35 million-a-year company in 15 years.

In 1992, ATS merged with three other employment agencies to form AccuStaff Inc., with Kesler as president and chief executive officer of the new company.

Kesler attributes some of her success to being a risk-taker.

"It's true that most of my risks have been calculated risks, but if I've erred it's always been on the side of risk rather than caution," she said.

Paul Halloran, Adium's chief financial officer called Kesler a visionary and a person of unending hard work.

"She built ATS through her sweat," he said.