Marjorie Del Toro wants to make sure everyone comes home safe from work, a mission she took upon herself years after a string of preventable accidents marred her childhood.
The founder and chief executive of Foothill Ranch-based ehs International Inc. lost her uncle—her father figure—when she was 12. Jose Luis Perez was electrocuted while working at a construction site. He left behind three children, all younger than 7.
“I’ll never forget that; it was just devastating,” she said. “He was the one who really took care of me.”
A similar misfortune befell her mother, a nurse, who was permanently disabled some years later while trying to plug in an electric wheelchair at a hospital. Del Toro took care of her mom, who required multiple back surgeries, as well as her three younger brothers, while also juggling college classes in business administration.
“I [wasn’t born with] a silver spoon,” she said.
Del Toro did have an insatiable drive to “keep people safe, especially in the Hispanic community,” where there were “a lot of culture and language barriers.”
An opportunity to create her own silver lining of sorts.
“I love people, and I want to help,” she said. “My uncle got electrocuted because there was a puddle of water; that’s it. That killed somebody.”
The first step toward realizing her goal involved learning how to establish and operate a business that would put her passion into play.
Del Toro earned her business acumen while working for nearly a decade with David Tsoong, an orthopedic surgeon who founded and managed several businesses, including Gateway Medical Group, StarCare Medical Group and Pinnacle Health Resources.
“I was a receptionist, and I worked my way up,” she said. “He allowed me to hold onto his coattails and learn.”
She ventured out on her own in 1996, turning her living room into a safety training company office. She invested $300, her total seed capital, in a “copier, fax and answering machine in one.”
“People would call, and I would say, ‘Would you please hold so I can get you your regional director?’ and it was of course me,” Del Toro said.
It took five years for the business—then called JoshuaCasey Corporate Training—to mature enough to move into office space in Foothill Ranch.
Del Toro started out with CPR/first aid training, then expanded her offerings to include regulatory compliance training and consulting services, such as safety and environmental risk management at construction sites and other workplaces employing heavy machinery.
As she added services, she began to hire staff to help in her growing enterprise, which today comprises 50 employees, along with subcontractors she uses regularly.
“The larger bulk of our business is going on the site and training employees on how to be safe,” she said. “Everything is completely customized. We don’t just go to the [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] website and download regulatory compliance and train off that. Our research and development department contacts clients and makes sure they have (safety) policies and procedures in place and incorporates those in training.”
Del Toro’s team also offers safety program development for its larger clients, such as Burbank-based Walt Disney Co., DirecTV in El Segundo, Guy F. Atkinson Construction LLC in Foothill Ranch, Hensel Phelps Construction Co. in Irvine, Shimmick Construction Co. in Oakland and Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana.
“What happens with a lot of organizations, they have the same program and the same (in-house) instructor, and complacency starts to set in,” she said. “They ask us to come in and provide a new way of training. We also develop a learning management system which keeps track of employees’ safety certifications. We don’t just do the training and disappear; we truly become strategic partners.”
She was also facing a grim business landscape several years ago, which actually turned out to be the company’s own silver lining.
“During the recession, it got pretty difficult. The first thing to go is of course the training,” she said. “[Clients] really tried to hit their bottom line. To survive, I started online training where it wasn’t feasible for us to come on site. We also started live webinars with clients like DirecTV. Different companies would log in at the same time, and the instructor would do the training. It was actually a smarter way of doing business. The cost remains the same for one hour with my instructor, but I have multiple companies across the nation logged in at once.”
The company also now records the webinars to allow clients to download them for later use—another source of revenue.
The new way of doing business has enabled her to attract clients such as Alliance of Schools for Cooperative Insurance Programs, which meets the insurance and risk management needs of some 400 school districts throughout California.
Del Toro renamed the firm ehs International in 2010 after a split with a business partner. The acronym stands for environmental, health and safety, reflecting its services.
A deal with a new business partner, personal protection and safety equipment distributor Abatix Corp. in Mesquite, Texas, has enabled ehs International to expand nationally, opening learning centers in Santa Fe Springs, as well as Florida, Arizona and Texas.
Del Toro has also forged business relationships with industry-based nonprofit organizations, such as Associated General Contractors of California, in hopes of turning its members into clients.
“I offer free services for their members in exchange for using us as a first right of refusal for any referrals for any of their members,” she said, adding that the company has already outpaced last year’s sales.
She estimated its 2014 revenue will reach $5 million.
She has kept her eye on her original goal as the company has grown.
“My main emphasis has been learning and how do I make sure that the (safety) culture at a lot of my clients is not just focused on regulatory compliance but making sure culture is about family and safety,” she said. “And
that’s really what drives me. I want people to learn.”
