Nine years ago, a life-threatening injury almost ended Teresa Daniel’s career as a business owner just as her company was beginning to succeed. But she was determined to keep the business going, and today her document management business is flourishing.

JANET ADAMS | BUSINESS FIRST

Teresa Daniels was motivated to recover as quickly as possible from a serious head injury in order to keep her document management firm thriving.

Daniel was eight months pregnant with her second child when she tripped on a flight of steps in May 1997, fell and hit her head on a concrete floor, resulting in a traumatic brain injury.

"My neurosurgeon said I came within a shred of losing my life," she said.  Daniel, who was living and working in Cleveland at the time, immediately had surgery and was then moved to Columbus, where the child was born one week later.  When she fell, Daniel was holding her first child, who was 1 year old at the time, but he wasn’t hurt.

"I have to say that divine intervention must have allowed me to survive," she said.  "One doctor told me that if it had come down to a choice between me and the baby, they would have taken the baby because he had a better chance of living."  The accident left her with a scar from the top to the bottom of her head and other injuries, and she was told it would take at least a year to recover. But, she had other ideas because her company, MTC Document Management Inc., was in the middle of an important transition.

Two weeks before the accident, the company had installed its first scanning software, which represented a big jump from the era of microfilming documents.

"I knew what the doctors had told me about recovery time, but I also kept thinking that I owned a business that had just undergone a big shift and that others were depending on me," she said. "What happened was an incredible shock to my staff because at that time, I did everything. I wanted to keep going because I’d come too far and I wasn’t about to let the staff down."

When she was released from the hospital, she couldn’t go up or down steps or drive a car. Two weeks later, she decided to get out of bed and go down the steps. "People said I couldn’t, but I faced my fear," Daniel said.

Four months later, she was back working, but the business’ recovery took much longer than her own. She lost customers, including her oldest and biggest client.

"They didn’t think I’d be capable of running the business," she said. "My confidence went way down for a while, but I never thought of giving up, and in the end, my anger and determination to succeed made me fight harder."

Daniel said it took about five years for the company to return to where it was at the time of the accident. Since then, it has grown steadily. Revenue has increased by more than 30 percent in each of the last three years, reaching nearly $2 million in 2005, she said.

JANET ADAMS | BUSINESS FIRST

Michael Stockinger is one of eight employees who work at Columbus-based MTC Document Management.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

MTC started in a garage with a three-person staff and now employs eight people in its office on the north side of Columbus. The company uses scanning equipment to convert paper documents and microfilm into electronic images that can be viewed with a client’s own software or online. It also sells document management equipment.

Its customers include the Ohio Board of Nursing, Ohio State University, Mattison & Co., NetJets and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Columbus.

"Because we’re a small company, we give personal service and feel we’re better able to listen to our clients’ needs than if we were a larger organization," she said.

Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, the city’s second largest law firm with 190 attorneys in Columbus, is one of those customers.

"We’ve used Teresa for several years and she and her business are fantastic," said Tom Richardson, records manager for the firm. "We feel her company is an extension of the firm, and she’s gone overboard many times to help us get everything our attorneys need to assist clients. She’s come here personally many times on nights or weekends to fulfill urgent requests and saved us from suffocating in paper records and intake forms."

Richardson said MTC frequently will take about 75 legal-size boxes full of documents and record them on three or four CDs, resulting in substantial savings of storage space.

"MTC has handled our records for between eight and 10 years and grown with us every step of the way from microfilm and microfiche to scanning, which is so much more efficient," said Diane Larsuel, claims manager for the fringe benefit program of the Columbus-based Ohio Association of Operating Engineers. Its members operate heavy equipment used in construction and road building.

"Much of our work involves health-care claims, an industry that’s always changing, and MTC has been outstanding in the way the company listens and offers ideas to help us," she said.