Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
Fingerprinting Express opened more than two decades after CEO and co-founder Monica Pappas and her mom saw an opportunity for a new venture in the then-new market for privatized fingerprinting businesses, ultimately becoming one of the first in the nation, Pappas said.
The storefront has since expanded to five locations statewide, and to house HireHealth, a separate entity that provides access to mandatory pre-employment health services like drug testing, physicals and more.
“With Fingerprinting Express now, it’s really a matter of keeping up with technology,” Pappas said. “And what’s so exciting is that with AI and technology evolving, we are able to implement that in the fingerprint background check industry, and that does get people to work faster.”
Those working with elderly people, people with disabilities or children, or handling large sums of money need a fingerprint background check, Pappas said. About 25% of the population needs a fingerprint background check for employment, volunteering, adopting, traveling and more, she said.
The fingerprinting industry has evolved in that many of its machines have popped up in convenience and shipping stores, Pappas said. But there’s not any training for the staff at those locations, she noted.
“And I call fingerprints ‘Goldilocks,’ ” Pappas said. “We have to get them just right. They can’t be too dry or too wet; too dark or too light. There’s a lot of techniques that we train our staff on.”
It’s been rewarding to see the growth of staff within the business, Pappas said, including customer service representatives who have gone on to be promoted to leads, managers and even directors of operations.
HireHealth, which launched in 2023, aimed to solve a problem of employees and applicants having to go to multiple locations for the services it provides.
“So the directive was, ‘Go here for your fingerprints, go here for your physical, go here for your TB testing,’ ” Pappas recalled. “During COVID, we had so many health care workers who are essential businesses telling us, ‘Oh, we wish that we could just do everything with you. It would be so convenient for us.’ And we thought, well, let’s go ahead and implement that.”
A one-stop shop for those services means a higher retention rating for the employers who mandate them, and a quicker turnaround time so people get to work faster, Pappas said.
Just over 10 years ago, the company also introduced “Culture to Care,” which discounts fees for teachers, nonprofit volunteers and military, among other things.
“We don’t want people to not get involved in the community because of red tape or it’s too expensive,” she said. “So we’ve discounted our fees as much as we possibly can and still remain in business.”
Fingerprinting Express functions on a business strategy of having multiple locations convenient for customers who want to travel to a store near where they work or live, Pappas said.
And the company is not done growing. There are plans to expand to four or five more locations in Nevada, she said, and to expand nationally — potentially through franchising.
Its next stop would be Florida “in the near future,” Pappas said, because of its similar regulatory structure to Nevada about fingerprint background checks, and the fact that the company already transmits fingerprints electronically to the Sunshine State.
“Florida is the only state that has opened up allowing electronic transmission from out-of-state vendors, so we are already connected with them, so it’s really easy for us to go into Florida and open,” Pappas said. “Plus, there is not a lot of businesses doing fingerprint background check collection in Florida, so it would be a great opportunity for us, and provide these solutions for Florida, as well.”
Fingerprinting as an industry has certain protocols but few checks and balances, Pappas said. As a result, she continued, Fingerprinting Express takes it upon itself to make sure the company checks its security networks on a regular basis.
The company is big in compliance and adhering to strict security protocols meant to protect customer data, Pappas said.
“We really go above and beyond in protecting data,” she said. “That’s one of the more important things about Fingerprinting Express. We also would not sell anyone’s information for any other purpose than what they’re hiring us for.”
When it comes to pre-employment services, Fingerprinting Express needs to do its job right for a customer to get the job they are seeking quickly.
Express is in the name, Pappas said, and the company has created technology systems that cut its processing times in half, automates data collection and submission, and ultimately reduces errors.
“We also have a hand in Nevada’s workforce,” she said “So we take that very seriously, as well. So we train all of our staff to double- and triple-check their work. We make sure everything is done correctly, because if there’s an error, it can delay that person’s employment or their process.”
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