Trion Solution, Inc.’s Mark M. Davidoff always has been intrigued by the interaction between management and employees in the workplace, even before HR was a widely used term in the business world. After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management, he went to work as a labor consultant in New York.
“I grew up on Long Island, and my undergraduate degree is from LIU CW Post,” Mark says. “Subsequently, I went to work in the labor relations field. They didn’t call it human resources back then. My passion was to help improve employment-related situations between employees and employers. As part of my consultancy years, I became proficient in the art of mediation, arbitration and collective bargaining.”
As members of FAPEO know, connections made as a member of a professional or trade association can pay big dividends.
Mark says about FAPEO, “The Florida Association of Professional Employer Organizations is an outstanding organization that is so important to our industry here in Florida. I like the proactive, strategic approach taken by FAPEO to anticipate, educate and react to issues that are so important to the current and future dynamics of the PEO industry in our state.”
Mark Davidoff has always recognized the value of professional affiliations. As a member of the American Arbitration Association, he met a leader in the arbitration profession who offered him a life-changing opportunity.
“Hezekiah Brown was the head of the New York State American Arbitration Association, and he was also the director of labor-management programs at Cornell University, New York School of Industrial and Labor Relations,” Mark says. “He told me he liked the way I negotiated cases and suggested I go back to school for my master’s degree.”
As a dean at Cornell University, Brown was able to offer Davidoff lifetime credits for his professional work and a full scholarship to further his education. Mark continued to work in Long Island and traveled after work three nights a week to attend classes in Manhattan. Four years later, he earned his master’s degree in labor relations from Cornell.
Davidoff’s first encounter with the PEO industry came in 1990, when he was appointed director of sales for Employer Professional Services (EPS), a division of Transportation Casualty Insurance Co. He was interested in expanding outside the state of Florida, so in the late 1990s, he and his son opened a PEO brokerage firm in Florida called American Business Solutions Group, LLC.
Once again, his business connections opened doors. In 2013, a new partnership allowed Davidoff the opportunity to grow from PEO broker to PEO owner.
“I met with an old friend from Detroit, who was also in the PEO business,” Mark says. “He had helped to combine two PEOs and was very good at balancing the intricacies of running a successful PEO. I was good at sales and negotiations, so we decided to work together to help grow the two combined PEOs under the new brand, Trion Solutions, Inc.”
Today, Mark Davidoff serves as executive vice president/chief sales officer for Trion Solutions with its national headquarters in Troy, Mich. It also has offices in Traverse City, Mich.; and inAventura, Naples and Orlando, Fla.; as well as its newest office in Phoenix, Ariz. Trion Solutions provides PEO services in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
“Trion’s payroll under management continues to grow each year,” Mark says.
Davidoff is a true champion of the PEO concept, and it seemed inevitable that he would have a thriving career in PEO management.
“Based on my background in labor relations and possessing an entrepreneurial spirit, I loved the value proposition of a PEO,” he says. “I always could see the win-win benefit for both the employer and the employee. It allows the small to midsize business to concentrate on its core competencies and makes it possible to bring large-company benefits to all employees.”
Mark Davidoff sees tremendous growth potential for the industry, as innovation and technology allow PEOs to grow their value-added services to benefit client companies and their employees.
“The other great growth opportunity for the PEO industry is the fact that so many businesses are not aware of or use a PEO,” he says. “As education increases and the overall market expands, the opportunities for growth in the PEO industry will be considerable.
“The heart of the PEO is its HRIS (human resource information system) and its employees,”Mark continues. “We believe our HRIS system is the most cutting edge in the industry. With the HRIS system coupled with the experience of our employees, we really feel Trion Solutions is the best in the business. We continue to keep up with our clients’ needs and now have 110 Trion internal employees and manage payroll and benefits for worksite employees nationwide.”
As he and his partners continue to expand the Trion business, they are alert to the threats that could stall or even reverse the growth of the PEO. In addition to infrastructure and technology failures, Davidoff cites customer service as an area where problems can arise for a PEO. He stresses that everyone on the team must be acclimated to a strong customer-service model.
“We not only provide excellent customer service, we implement it with variations to meet the needs of each client,” he says. “We handle the nonproductive side of our clients’HRto allow them to concentrate on the core competencies of their businesses. We try to help them any way we can, even to the point that we have an internal law firm. All the states have different laws, and our internal firm helps guide our clients in the right direction in each state.”
As Trion Solutions, Inc., continues to grow, the company strives to give back to the many communities in which it does business. “Trion Solutions is a highly generous company that supports several very important and worthy nonprofit causes, especially those involving mental health, children and education,” Mark says. “In addition to the support we provide at the corporate level, our team members at Trion Solutions are tremendously charitable with the personal time and contributions they provide charity organizations in their local areas.”
Mark Davidoff has been married to Brenda for 21 years, and they have five grown children and six grandchildren. When not busy at work (or with the grandkids), he enjoys exercising, swimming and traveling. Since he is based in Aventura in northeastern Miami-Dade County, he has easy access to the ocean and year-round beach weather to enjoy it.