Crothall—Professional Services Merger:
A Story of Coming Home Again

A Storied History

To understand the truly historic importance of Crothall Services Group's acquisition of Professional Services requires a brief history lesson. Alan Crothall, the founder of contract management in healthcare support services, started hospital housekeeping in New Zealand in the 1960s. Alan taught the business to the founders of ServiceMaster. Alan's son, Graeme Crothall, brought Alan's legacy to the U.S. with Crothall American. Following some unexpected changes, Graeme's company eventually became Marriott Management.

In 1990, Steve Barnett and Chris Coyne created BarnettCoyne & Associates, and courted Graeme as an investor. With the acquisition of Morrison's housekeeping business, Morrison-Crothall Support Services (MCSS) was born. This became Crothall Services Group in 1999.

Having left Morrison-Crothall in 1995, Steve Barnett became the COO of Professional Services in 1996. Ira Levy, CEO of Professional Services, son of Professional's founder, has maintained his father's legacy, growing this successful company for more than 50 years.

Full Circle

Around 2001, strategic acquisitions created a consolidation within the industry: Aramark acquired ServiceMaster, Sodexho acquired Marriott, and Compass Group acquired Crothall Services Group. It is no overstatement that the founding leaders of Crothall Services Group played integral roles in the development of the entire U.S. healthcare support services industry. The merger with Professional Services is in many ways a homecoming, rejoining Crothall with some of the talented people that helped build this legacy of success.

Steve Barnett said of the merger, "It's like coming home for me personally. The merger is an excellent final step for two traditions with almost identical values coming together after all these years."

Dudley Poppens, Professional's SVP of Sales and Marketing, played an extraordinarily important role in the early growth of Crothall, especially in the Chicago and Midwest markets. Steve and Dudley are both enthusiastic about returning to the rich history of the Crothall name. Steve Barnett adds, "The prospects of the two organizations combined makes our future extremely bright in terms of growing the company and people's careers."

A Promising Future Together

"Our success in acquiring Professional Services is a key milestone in our company's history-strengthening the value we bring to our clients by learning from and sharing our respective organizations' best practices," said Bobby Kutteh, Crothall's President & CEO. "I am extremely proud of how effectively we have already completed the integration of the sales and marketing teams, and how we continue to so successfully combine the expertise between human resources, accounting, operations, and corporate office teams."

We welcome Professional Services into the Crothall family, and we embrace our exciting shared future.