Dominion Payroll featured in Richmond BizSense

It's a small world for one Richmond Business

By Al Harris
Richmond BizSense
June 13, 2011

A local payroll company continues expanding, this time by acquiring a Tennessee firm.

Dominion Payroll Services, which has grown to 1,200 customers since launching in 2002, bought Premier Payroll Consultants in Nashville for an undisclosed amount.

CEO David Gallagher said buying satellite firms is a key to its growth strategy.

“One way that we could grow is organically in the local marketplace,” said Gallagher. “But buying other firms allows the firm to grow more rapidly.”

“As we expand our growth into other regions, our new client growth is adding 60 to 100-plus clients at fairly regular clips,” Gallagher said.

Dominion Payroll acquired a Tampa firm last fall, and Gallagher said he has a notion to take on one or two more over the next year.

Gallagher said that as the company grows in other markets, it has to hire more support staff in Richmond.

“I believe we will hire six to 10 [people] in the next 12 months,” he said.

The Nashville firm was founded by Ray Fadool, who is from Richmond.

“What is funny is that I did not know him. In fact, when we entered in conversations, we did not know he was from Richmond. It ended up we went to the same high school: Benedictine,” Gallagher said.

The mutual business contact who put them in touch also did not know Fadool was from Richmond.

With little job growth here and across the country, Gallagher said his company’s secret to expanding has been clients who are turning away from bigger payroll companies, which he sees as a national trend.

“A lot of our growth comes from organizations that were using very large providers and decided to switch to a local provider for customer service reasons,” Gallagher said.

Al Harris is a BizSense reporter. Please send news tips to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

View original article here.