Prior to forming Gentry Professional Services, a group of engineers and project managers struggled with a frequently recurring problem. The most experienced industry professionals were retiring at a rapid pace, resulting in a Silver Tsunami of lost institutional knowledge. Companies struggled to compensate for the sudden absence of key employees.
After a short time, many retirees found they missed the work and the people that had been a part of their lives for decades and often wanted to return to a part-time consulting role. Although possible, the inconsistent and overly complex HR and Procurement policies made returning a difficult and complicated process for everyone involved.
The manager’s dilemma is not unique to engineering. In fact, it happens in almost every industry.
We formed Gentry Professional Services with this in mind. Using our streamlined process, we work with your company to bring in the industry specialist(s) you need, enabling you to fill knowledge gaps, outsource tasks that are beyond your core competencies, and train your employees in critical skills.
We also strive to improve the personal experience of professional lives, making this a win-win process for our clients and employees. Companies recover specialized top talent, while our employees enjoy both flexibility and fulfillment in their work.
We take care of our employees and treat them with respect.
We consider our employees family, and we treat them as such.
We serve our country, our clients, our family, and our communities.
We strive to provide the best solution and exceed client expectations.
As individuals retire, they take a lifetime of domain knowledge and experience with them. Many want to continue working part-time, but most employers do not support a phased retirement plan. Our approach enables them to fully retire, then join the Gentry Professional Services team working on their own terms to consult on projects, often at their previous organizations.
If you are an employer and need to fill 1,000 seats now, we will recommend other companies because we are not for you. However, if you have an indispensable employee about to retire, we can help you. If you need to bring in an industry expert or even a young prodigy, we can help you. If your company’s HR or procurement limits your ability to bring in support, we can help you.
Our goal is not to have the most employees but to be our client’s partner of choice. We are confident that we can provide the best solution for our clients and would rather refer them to someone else than risk underperforming or not meeting expectations.
Before hiring someone, we ensure the candidate is a good fit with our client and within our own team culture. To us, the relationship is like a successful marriage; we take care of our employees and treat them with respect. In our experience, when employees feel genuinely appreciated, they pay it forward with hard work for our clients.
Chief Executive Officer
Bradley Gentry holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, as well as a master’s degree in business administration. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Contingent Workforce Professional (CCWP). In 2013, Bradley founded Odyssey Consulting, Inc., where he recruited nationally recognized industry leaders for the Odyssey team and acquired over 120 contracts for professional consulting and engineering services. Bradley also worked as a systems engineer and program manager at Northrop Grumman Corporation and has over 20 years of experience designing and testing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems. As CEO, Bradley is responsible for creating, planning, and executing the company’s strategy and business operations.
Chief People Officer
Jaimie Gentry is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Before becoming CPO of Gentry Professional Services, she was the Chief Executive Officer of Odyssey Consulting, Inc., where she doubled revenue for four consecutive years. Jaimie has also held leadership positions in supply chain management, legal services, and financial services industries. As CPO, she acts as a point of contact for all employee relations matters.
Chief Human Resources Officer
Glenda Caton has been certified by the Society of Human Resource Management as a Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP). Glenda has over 20 years of experience in human resources, operations, and training & development. She holds a bachelor’s degree in business management with an emphasis on human resources. She conducts seminars and regularly speaks on employment law compliance, recruiting and retention, and employee relations/engagement. She serves on the Central Arkansas Human Resources Association (CAHRA) Board of Directors and the Arkansas SHRM State Council. As the CHRO for Gentry Professional Services, she works strategically with the leadership team to ensure compliance and cultural alignment across the organization, onboards new team members, and oversees the management of benefits.
Chief Technology Officer
Ryan Gibson holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Harvey Mudd College where he graduated with Distinction. Prior to joining Gentry Professional Services, Ryan worked for 10+ years as a software architect in the defense sector where he specialized in designing and implementing highly performant distributed processing platforms. He then spent eight years in executive leadership at a cloud native ad tech startup where he oversaw the modernization of their AWS-based backend infrastructure, including a re-platform onto Kubernetes and several revamps of their data processing pipeline. As CTO, Ryan defines and implements the company’s strategic technical objectives and specializes in bringing container native technologies to the embedded ecosystem.
Director of Business Initiatives
Devin Ryder holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Akron and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins, both in electrical engineering, and 16 years of professional experience. Devin brings over a decade of engineering and technical leadership to Gentry Professional Services, having directed cross-functional teams as small as three people and organizations as large as 1,800 people across the globe. During this time, Devin also developed a deep passion for transparency, effective communication, and direct customer engagement with a focus on understanding client needs to produce the most appropriate solutions. As a part of the Gentry team, Devin now provides expert systems engineering consulting services to customers while teaming with the rest of the Gentry leadership team, as Director of Business Initiatives, to expand our services to new customers and industries across the country.
A traditional staffing agency can’t match the talent or knowledge of an experienced & specialized employee.
If you’re looking for a solution to help you recover the unmatched experience of your key employees, schedule a free consultation with our team at Gentry professional services to learn more about how our unique approach can benefit your business.