Outsourced laboratory

The regulatory power to crush businesses was a big takeaway for Celeste Dockery during her decade-long stint on a statewide board that oversees the employee leasing industry.
The industry, basically formed in Bradenton in the early 1980s, is formally known as PEOs — Professional Employer Organizations. With PEOs, businesses can outsource a host of back-office tasks. The list ranges from human resources and employee benefits to payroll and workers' compensation insurance.

Dockery founded and ran a successful PEO for 15 years, Bradenton-based Professional Employee Management. She considered early retirement when she sold her firm in 2000. But then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appointed her to the Board of Employee Leasing Companies, run by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. So Dockery stayed in the industry, and for an entrepreneur and business owner, she got a rare look behind the regulatory gates.

“It was interesting sitting on the other side,” Dockery says. “In the position of a regulator you see the good, the bad and ugly. And I didn't like the ugly.”