Health-care exec finds Murfreesboro an inviting place to relocate than 1,600 health-care-centered companies are located here,” he says. “This region is the for-profit health care capital of the country right now. More hospitals are managed out of Middle Tennessee than anywhere else in the United States.” Ferro says he specifically chose to construct his business in Rutherford County because, basically, his entire workforce resides in the county.
“I heard a statistic where 75 percent of working people who live in Rutherford County actually travel to Davidson County or Williamson County for their jobs every weekday,” he says. “I’m glad that my employees don’t need to travel far to work. As a result, they don’t have to sit in traffic for two hours a day. That’s another bonus of living and working in Rutherford County.” – Kevin Litwin
A N TO N Y B O S H I E R
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oe Ferro decided in 2007 to relocate his ClaimTrust Inc. health-care data company from Florida to … somewhere. “My choices came down to Boston and Middle Tennessee, and Middle Tennessee won out – thankfully,” says Ferro, ClaimTrust president and CEO. “We constructed a new building in Murfreesboro and moved into it in March 2009. It was built to comfortably house about 30 employees, and we were fully staffed the day we moved in.” He adds that six of his top employees from Florida joined him on the move to Rutherford County, but those employees would not have moved if the company had relocated to Boston. Ferro says that the relocation effort to Rutherford County was made that much easier because he and his wife, Kathy, both graduated from Middle Tennessee State University in 1991. “We also both know what a great school system is in place here for our kids,” he says. “Plus we enjoy the quality of life, parks and recreation options, and the cost of living is much less expensive than Boston or South Florida. Rutherford County is very family oriented – it’s just a nice place to raise children.” Ferro founded ClaimTrust in 1998 in Fort Lauderdale, and the company’s main mission is to help hospitals make sure they are sending out insurance claims that are fully coded and documented. In other words, ClaimTrust helps hospitals get paid for the medical services they provide. Middle Tennessee and New England each offer good workforces that are highly trained in the health-care sector, so either destination would have provided top-level talent. “A key reason why we chose Rutherford County is that Middle Tennessee is not only known for country music, but more
Joe Ferro, CEO of software company ClaimTrust, relocated his headquarters from Florida to Murfreesboro, in part because of the quality of life offered.
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