Every once in awhile someone asks me how did we come up with the company name – TYGES? As the story goes, I bought a franchise from MRINetwork back in the summer of 2002 after leaving John Deere. At the time, MRINetwork brought their new franchise owners to Cleveland, Ohio for three weeks of “boot camp” training to help get you launched. Within the franchise agreement, I was able “purchase” rights to York County Virginia which is parallel to the county I currently reside in (note that territory was purchased by two friends of mine), and one of the requirements of the franchise agreement was your office had to be in your territory (absolutely made no sense but I followed the rules). When I headed to Cleveland in early July for the training class, one of the things they asked us to do was come up with a name for our company. Under the crunch to get a name so I can focus on starting this business, and not having an ounce of creativity in my bones, I started with the obvious. York county is home to a very historical place in the US called Yorktown, and so “The Yorktown Group” was birthed in July 2002.
“The Yorktown Group” was birthed in July 2002
For the next seven years, we operated under “The Yorktown Group” and built a solid business and brand. What bothered us though were questions like –
• Are you guys near York, Pennsylvania?
• Does that mean you only place people in Yorktown?
• Where is Yorktown?
Understanding the vision to build a global company someday, we knew that it was time for a re-brand. For those of you that have done a re-brand, you know that it’s not as easy as just as creating a new name, but rather a host of other associated activities to ensure alignment across all facets of the business. We embarked upon a new name in early 2009 at the height of the recession. We considered hiring a marketing firm, but with some research, we determined that it may be better for us to come up with our own name. We started looking at some of the more prominent brands like General Electric who went to GE and International Business Machines Corp who shifted to IBM and said why not do the same with “The Yorktown Group.” My first pass was “www.tyg.com” thinking that this absolutely made sense – the problem was the domain name was taken. After being disappointed, we sat down and pieced together our name and what we do for a living – The Yorktown Group Executive Search or what we know as TYGES today. After noodling on it for a few weeks, we moved forward with it, along with the new pronunciation – “tie/gus.” From there, we bought the domain name and hired a marketing firm to build out our color palette and design a logo. With their help, we ended up with the white tiger which is indicative of what we do as we are pursuing people for our clients who are rare, like the white tiger.
In June 2009, we launched our new brand to the world, and it has helped shape who we are today. We’ve built our mission statement – “We’re here to make good things happen for other people” along with our Core Values: Integrity, Respect, Accountability, Determination, and Courage. With these as the foundation of our organization, we strive to live these out daily as we conduct business. In the past 10 years, we have grown significantly in headcount, number of offices, number of customers, revenue, etc. with plans to continue to scale this company across the globe.
Written by: TIM SAUMIER, President and Founder
Tim Saumier started his recruiting career when he opened TYGES International back in July 2002 after purchasing a franchise from MRINetwork. He has grown the business from start-up office in 2002 to where it is today helping clients around the world solve their talent acquisition problems. While he does place people with companies, he brings much more through his consultative coaching with both companies and individuals hence the reason he has built long-lasting relationships that continue to work with TYGES.
Prior to starting TYGES, Tim spent thirteen years in corporate America with companies like John Deere, Moen, and Philips where he had the opportunity to work in supply chain, operations, and engineering during his career.
“We’re here to make good things happen for other people.”
