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64 of services includes everything from better recordkeeping to more rigid rules regarding identifying and maintaining vacant proper- ties. anks to new regulations, nearly 1,000 municipalities across the country have enacted vacant property registration systems to keep track of who owns a vacant property—some- thing that didn't even exist a few years ago, Mosley says. As for the consolidation aspect, the harsh truth in the new world of heavy regulation is that expensive compliance requirements are shrinking the industry and forward-thinking companies that manage to find their footing are growing as the industry tries to cope. MCS might have suffered an opposite fate if not for the fortuitous turn of events that brought Reaves and her trusted staff along just before the recession hit. Reaves knew the former CEO of MCS, Allan Martin, who ran the company as a mostly regional operation out of Tampa, Florida. e two talked about Reaves joining the firm, but she had no interest in relocating to Tampa. Martin built the Plano office just to get Reaves on board. Reaves faced a lot of hard decisions to get the MCS staff to where it needed to be, but bringing Maxwell on board was an easy one. Back at First American, where Reaves ran a division, she and Maxwell faced their share of hard decisions as well, and she knew she needed him—and his unflappable, low-key honesty engendered in his favorite mantra, "Truth and justice will always prevail"—by her side. "John always stood by me," she says. "I always knew I could believe him. I always knew he would do what's right." Integrity and strength of character are major components in how MCS does business. Hinkle, whose many hats include making sure clients, vendors, and consumers all work well together, monitors the character of everyone at every level, from the MCS offices to the contractors who maintain properties. "We have to ask, 'What is the character of the individual going out and working on the site and doing business with consumers?'" he says. "Part of my job is showing how I can demonstrate that I've vetted the individual." e character issue is one thing MCS had the jump on prior to the crash. Digital recordkeeping, thanks mainly to MCS' Chief Technology Officer Rob Colbeck and his team, is another. Before the regulations changed so dramatically, most field services companies still kept paper records and Polaroid images of properties. In 2007 MCS began its shift to software- based recordkeeping, which allowed for faster communications between vendors and the firm and for more complete records of every property in the company's inventory. To date, MCS has invested more than $30 million in technology to ensure it can keep up with the always-challenging, always-expensive compliance requirements that have consumed so many smaller companies. But while the reaper's scythe has taken its toll on the number of servicing and property preservation firms, the wealth of new jobseekers with industry experience is proving a boon to MCS. More and more, Reaves says, applicants are coming in with years of experience and a drive to continue working in a difficult industry. ose without years of experience bring college education, often from nearby. MCS has four locations, one of which is in Ruston, Louisiana, just a few miles from Grambling University and Reaves' alma mater, Louisiana Tech. What's important about this site is it is bringing recent college grads straight into MCS, where all new hires are sent through training, both mandatory and voluntary. A mentoring program is also offered to build strong employees who advance with the company. One of the rewards of this effort to grow employees in-house is an exceedingly low turnover rate at the senior level. Now, says Reaves, more graduates are staying in Ruston to work with MCS. Originally, the company pledged 90 new jobs there in five years. It reached that number in 15 months. Today's total: 140 employees. Reaves says Louisiana Tech and the City of Ruston have made every effort to help MCS thrive, under the principle of "To be successful, we need you to be successful." is past October, MCS added its fourth site, MCS Valuations, when it acquired the collateral solutions and field services business