Imagine this scenario: A large manufacturer was offering an orientation session for 18 potential employees. During the three-hour presentation, these prospects learned about the company’s history, their potential job duties and the company’s mandatory urine test for drug abuse.
On this particular day, the company’s on-site nurse was out of the office, so the manufacturer called Mogadore-based Omega Laboratories Inc. to perform the collections. Later that afternoon, the company manager told the prospects to go to the nurse’s office for their hair test, saying, “If you have taken illegal drugs in the past 90 days, we will find out, and you will not be eligible for employment.”
After learning that their hair — and not their urine — would be sampled, only six people remained to take the test.
Hair testing finds six to eight times more drug users than does urinalysis over a 90-plus day time frame. This has opened the door for the unique field of testing hair samples for drug use, and that has proved a good thing for Omega’s CEO and co-founder, John Vitullo, and its president, Jay Davis.
The company reported the results of its first drug test in 2000, and has experienced tremendous growth since then. It is opening new accounts and taking major accounts from competitors with a strategy of fast turnaround for test results and high levels of customer service.
Omega has experienced triple-digit revenue growth every year since that first test and has increased its original staff of five to today’s 22 employees. It expects to employ more than 40 people within the next 12 to 18 months.
Omega is one of only six laboratories worldwide offering the hair-sample testing for drug use, and has become the second-largest player in the market. Testing is used by employers for pre-employment testing, random test programs and post-accident tests.
Courts are also using hair testing, which has proven difficult to develop for most of Omega’s potential competitors. In fact, Omega performs the hair testing offered by LabCorp (Laboratory Corp. of America), a $3 billion leader in laboratory testing.
HOW TO REACH: Omega Laboratories Inc., (330) 628-5748 or http://www.omegalabs.net
