JACKSONVILLE, FLA.-BASED DRUG-SCREENING FIRM SEES RAPID GROWTH IN BUSINESS

Jun. 2--While trying to grow her company's drug screening business, Jane
Freedman spent two years bringing doughnuts and other gifts -- including
exercise videos -- to officials at Momentum Logistics.

Finally, the firm hired Freedman's Medical Express Corp. to handle its
employee drug screenings.

"If you don't give Jane your drug testing business, she isn't leaving,"
joked Linda Rose Griffin, Freedman's partner and business administrator of
Medical Express, a Jacksonville-based drug screening company. Freedman is
the company's president and owner.

Now, instead of going door to door in search of business, Medical Express is
getting phone calls from prospective customers across the nation -- and
turning some of them down.

In the past four years, the company has grown about 800 percent and is
expected to generate about $2 million in sales this year, $400,000 more than
last year, Griffin said.

Nationally, drug testing is big business. Since 1989, when the government
required workers such as pilots and truck drivers to be tested for drugs,
more private employers have made drug screenings a requirement for
employment.

Drug users have more work-related injuries and have higher absenteeism than
non-drug users, said Henry Goldberg, the retired president of
Milwaukee-based Substance Abuse Management Inc., one of the nation's largest
drug screening administrators.

About 75 percent of Jacksonville's businesses now screen employees for drug
use, Griffin said.

Medical Express acts as an administrator, setting up screenings and lab
services for companies nationwide, then billing them for the collection, lab
and medical test reviewing costs on a single invoice.

The company has 700 clients nationwide and can provide drug testing results
in 24 hours if the person tests negative and in five days for a positive
result.

Most of Medical Express' business now comes from referrals from other
clients and laboratories that can't process a single bill for multiple
services and sites.

The eight-person staff also performs drug screenings for some area firms in
its Salisbury Road office and does some testing on-site at local companies,
services its national clients don't receive for quality-control reasons,
Griffin said.

"I had to decide if I wanted to offer everything to everyone or if I wanted
to specialize," she said. "I decided to specialize in drug testing and
background checks. I don't want to do business where I don't know what the
quality of the business is."

Medical Express employees perform about 1,200 in-office drug screenings each
month and between 300 and 400 in the field. Nationally, the company handles
about 4,000 drug tests each month, Griffin said.

About 90 percent of Medical Express' business is drug screenings.

But the company also does physicals and tests to help Jacksonville companies
meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements, background
checks and Department of Transportation physicals.

At local health fairs, Medical Express staffers offer blood screenings,
tuberculosis tests, vaccinations and flu shots, which Freedman said saves
companies time and money because they don't have to send their employees to
doctors' offices.

The company was formed in 1990 to do wellness training through health fairs
and well-care screenings, but that did not turn out to be a profitable
business. So in 1994, Freedman decided to focus the business on drug
screenings.

Charlie Camp, recruiting supervisor for Raven Transportation, said Medical
Express has performed Department of Transportation physicals and drug tests
and non-departmental drug screenings on the company's 220 employees.

Camp used the company at his previous job and when Raven Transportation
needed a drug screener, he called on his experience with Medical Express.

"They were the first one on my list that I went back to visit. They answer
my questions and they're on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he
said. "Being a little bit smaller, they give better individual attention"
than larger companies.

It may be small now, but Griffen said Medical Express is growing so fast
that she and Freedman are turning down large contracts to concentrate on the
businesses the company already serves.

Last year, a Jacksonville competitor closed and Medical Express picked up
their clients, increasing business by 30 percent. Also last year, another
Florida company closed and Medical Express took over their clients, too.

So when Medical Express was asked by Seattle-based Boeing Company to bid for
their 10,000 screenings a month, Griffin said they didn't have the staff to
handle their business on top of their existing clients.

"We would rather not take it than lose it," she said, adding she and
Freedman want to grow the company, but at a slower rate.