In the course of a distinguished career that began in 1968, Mr. Whitaker has personally completed and supervised thousands of successful searches. He started as a technical recruiter with the largest firm in the search industry and advanced to become manager of one of the company’s top offices. After spearheading the start-up of a new division for the company, he left in 1983 to establish The Whitaker Companies. Since that time he has pioneered the unique approach that has enabled the company to provide the highest-quality staffing solutions and also continually adjusted the company’s service offerings to address clients’ most pressing staffing needs. Mr. Whitaker is committed to training and development and has been very active in local, state and national personnel associations. Beginning in 1986, as a Director for the Houston Area Association of Personnel Consultants (HAAPC), he was responsible for the local Certified Personnel Consultants (CPC) testing program. For that effort, he was named Texas CPC of the Year and became Chairman of the state’s CPC program in 1987. Under his direction, the state organization was named "National Chapter of the Year" in 1988. In 1989, Mr. Whitaker became Second Vice President of the Texas Association of Personnel Consultants (TAPC) and, in 1990, was named President. During that time, he was appointed to the National CPC Committee responsible for the development of continuing education programs. In 1992, he was founding chairman of the Legislative Information and Networking Committee (LINC) that works with a number of industry associations on pertinent legislative issues.