Washington and Lee University School of Law

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During the years following the dot com crash, stories of online businesses closing their virtual doors abounded. But a company founded by Washington and Lee School of Law graduate Shawn Boyer '97 weathered those tough times.

Now Boyer has been rewarded for his company's perseverance and success. The founder and CEO of SnagAJob.com has been named the 2008 National Small Business Person of the Year by the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). Boyer is the first entrepreneur to win the SBA award for a Web venture.

Much like the classified section of a newspaper, SnagAJob takes a fee from employers to post hourly and part-time job openings. Job seekers access the site listings for free. Some of the largest employers in the United States, including Home Depot and Target, use SnagAJob to find employees.

"It's always difficult to get large businesses to change the way they have been doing things for forty years," says Boyer. "But ultimately we were able to show them we could find workers who were the best fit for their needs."

With a father who owns a retail store and a brother who started a fitness company, running a business was in Boyer's blood. He attended law school with the intent of starting a commercial real estate firm and prepared by immersing himself at W&L in transactional courses such as taxation, partnerships, and secured transactions. He credits Professor Lyman Johnson's business planning course, along with courses taught by Allan Vestal and Keith Engel, with preparing him for a career as a business owner.

"You just don't get the kind of 1-on-1 time with professors anywhere else," says Boyer, who also has an LL.M. in taxation from Georgetown Law Center. "People always ask me if it bothers me that I don't 'use my law degree' but at W&L you really learn to think through all sorts of problems and situations. That training can be applied anywhere."

After graduating from W&L, Boyer worked on his LL.M. in the evenings while practicing as a transactional attorney for two law firms, continuing to gather experience for starting his own company. He got the idea for SnagAJob in 1999 when a friend told him he was having a hard time finding an internship online. Sure enough, Boyer found that the Web offered few resources for people seeking part-time or hourly jobs. SnagAJob.com went live in May 2000, just nine months after that original brainstorm.

Started with two 2 full-time employees crammed into a 1,000-square-foot office, today the company boasts 110 full-time "snaggers" in a 35,000-square-foot facility in Richmond, Va. With over 9 million registered job seekers and nearly 4 million website visitors each month, SnagAJob is the nation's largest job site for part-time and full-time hourly jobs.

SnagAJob, which has been operating profitably since 2004, caught the attention of investors, and in 2006 Boyer partnered with the investment banking firm Croft & Bender and fellow W&L alumnus Steve Tye '97A to take on venture capital. The company continues to grow and last year reported sales of $11 million.

Shawn Boyer '97, CEO of SnagAJob.com (middle), is flanked by Jovita Carranza (left), Deputy Administrator and Steve Preston (right), Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration
 
In determining the National Small Business Person of the Year award, judges for the SBA use criteria including overall growth, demonstrating innovation, and responding to adversity. In particular, the judges also recognized Boyer for his company's community outreach. SnagAJob employees regularly volunteer at the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity and as counselors at a local camp for children who have lost family members.

"For me this has always been about more than creating a big company and making money," explains Boyer. "Our mission as a company is to help people find right-fit positions so that they can maximize their potential and live more fulfilling lives. This extends to our own employees. We want to do good by doing well."