LATPRO INC.
MILWAUKEE, WI

About LatPro The inspiration for LatPro traces back to one man’s job search. When Eric Shannon graduated from the University of South Carolina’s MIBS program, he knew he wanted a career that would combine his interest in business with his Spanish language skills and knowledge of Latin America. He soon discovered that there were no employment or recruiting services filling that particular niche …and so, the concept for LatPro was born. If there were no employment websites dedicated to needs of Hispanic and bilingual professionals, Eric would build one. So, in 1997 Eric founded LatPro, an online employment site dedicated to bringing diversity to the American workforce. For nearly 20 years, Shannon and the LatPro team have worked tirelessly to connect Hispanic and bilingual professionals with employers throughout the Americas. Using traditional job postings and an extensive online resume database, LatPro made a name for itself in the employment and recruitment market. Refusing to rest on its laurels, the LatPro team launched a successful series of diversity focused job fairs, held annually in major cities throughout the country. But LatPro’s dedication to diversity in the American workforce doesn’t end with simply matching job-seekers with potential employers. Shannon and the LatPro team understand that success in the business world begins with education. To that end, LatPro has established the LatPro was started in 1997 by Eric Shannon. Now, you may be thinking, “What the heck is a guy named Shannon doing running a Hispanic job board?” The seeds of LatPro were planted while I was enrolled in the University of South Carolina’s top ranked Master of International Business Studies (MIBS) program. Every student in the program was required to speak a foreign language and complete a six-month internship abroad (in my case, for Avery Dennison in Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina). Prior to entering the program, I spent a year traveling, becoming fluent in Spanish, and falling in love with the natural beauty of Guatemala. In graduate school, I fell in love again… with my future wife Carolina, who was in the same program studying on a Fulbright scholarship and J1 visa (and, coincidentally, she was from Guatemala). After graduating in 1996, I began searching for a very specific employment situation – a job with a U.S. company based near Colombia, South Carolina that wanted me to build its business in Latin America using my Spanish language skills. That job search led me to a surprising discovery — there were no online employment sites specifically for bilingual professionals! That realization led me to the idea for a successful Internet recruiting business that had no competition – a niche job board for Spanish/English and Portuguese/English bilinguals. Starting an Internet business worked out perfectly for us. Carolina (now my fiancée) had landed a management trainee position with Chiquita Brands, which bought us another year in the U.S. before we would have to move to Guatemala to satisfy Carolina’s visa requirement. We relocated to Cincinnati, OH in 1997 so Carolina could work at Chiquita headquarters while I dedicated myself full time to LatPro. In 1998, Chiquita Brands moved us to Guatemala. We operated LatPro from Guatemala while maintaining an official address and telephone number in Miami. A year later, I convinced my wife to work full time with me at LatPro – a huge milestone for us! Then in 2000, as the Internet bubble reached its peak, we were able to obtain a waiver for 6 months of Carolina’s J1 home-country time and moved to South Florida to grow the business. With the help of Nate Clement, who had participated in the original business planning back in 1996, we were successful in raising $1 million (USD) early that same year. This investment allowed us to hire a management team composed entirely of friends from the MIBS program and move into our first real office. It was an exciting time — the business was taking off, we were talking with venture capitalists and LatPro was making a name for itself in the recruiting industry and the media. Like all other Internet companies, the NASDAQ crash hit LatPro hard. As we struggled to regain our footing, the 9/11 tragedy occurred, severely impacting our business. Our revenue dropped, all of my MBA friends went back to their traditional brick-and-mortar careers, and we set about rebuilding the business. Fortunately, our customers stuck with us and many talented individuals have joined our team since those difficult years. The new team has won awards, developed a series of diversity job fairs with the National Society for Hispanic Professionals, and expanded LatPro’s partner network to include some of the most prestigious Hispanic organizations in the country. Since 1997, LatPro has grown from a start-up business in the corner of an apartment to an industry-leading company with 25 employees from 10 different countries. We have always been on the lookout for new ways to serve our customers and this has brought change. Advertise on LatPro When you advertise with LatPro, you gain maximum exposure to a large, targeted audience of educated Hispanic professionals. As the most visited diversity site online (independently ranked by Alexa.com), LatPro is a cost-effective solution for reaching this valuable demographic. Your advertisement will have premium visibility by appearing with LatPro content and services created specifically for Hispanics and offered in their language of choice (our tri-lingual Web site is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese). In addition to our Web content, LatPro also distributes over 200,000 issues of our email newsletters each month. LatPro’s Visitors With over 325,000 active registered members and almost 300,000 unique monthly visitors, LatPro offers advertisers targeted access to our audience of Hispanic professionals. The typical LatPro visitor is a bilingual, educated Hispanic.