Utah Business: Katie Hoffman Abby is a Woman to Watch VISTA's Executive Vice President Receives Top Honor

Katie Hoffman Abby, a founder and executive vice president of Salt Lake City's VISTA Staffing Solutions (http://www.vistastaff.com), the physician staffing division of On Assignment, was named one of 30 Women to Watch by Utah Business magazine on May 1, 2007. On Assignment, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASGN), one of the largest healthcare, scientific, IT and engineering staffing companies in the US.

The Women to Watch program recognizes female business owners or high-level executives who are dynamic professionals with demonstrated records of success within their fields and the community. Recipients are likely to have built the ladder of success before having the opportunity to climb it and are women who can stand as mentors to young business women, according to program sponsors.

Nominees are judged on the following criteria:

*Leadership ability
*Professional achievements
*Personal achievements
*Professional and professional obstacles overcome
*What makes her a remarkable achiever
*Community involvement
*Business and personal philosophy
*The advantage this individual gives Utah

As outlined in her nomination, Katie began her career in the physician staffing (locum tenens) industry as a recruiter in the early 1980s. She's the quintessential "you get back what you put into life" leader, joining with Mark Brouse and Clarke Shaw to found VISTA in 1990. The award was timely. VISTA was acquired by On Assignment effective January 3, 2007. Katie, the other officers, and the employees of VISTA will add an important new component to On Assignment's portfolio of services.

Katie played a key role in the development of recruitment and credentials review processes that ensure that only qualified physicians are recruited for the temporary jobs VISTA places them in. She's also helped set the standard for assessing the quality of a match between a practice in need of help and a physician interested in the work. She helped formalize these standards as a founding member of the National Association of Locum Tenens Organizations, an industry organization established to create and enforce standards for ethics and good business practices in the physician staffing industry. She is immediate past-president of this organization and has served on the board in many capacities, including chairing the ethics and arbitration committee.

Katie leads by example, according to the employees who pressed for her nomination, whether it's in picking up the phone to check one more reference on a physician, or getting up at 4 a.m. to run before an early flight to one of VISTA's satellite offices. (She qualified and ran the Boston Marathon in 2005, and competes in marathons and triathlons several times a year.) She has helped build a culture of wellness at the company, making yoga, Pilates, and resistance training classes, and massage therapy available at discount rates for employees. Gym memberships are also underwritten as long as employees work out consistently.

In addition to everything she does for her family and her VISTA family, Katie is a member of the board of directors of International Volunteers in Urology, an organization that takes entire medical and teaching teams to developing countries to help teach local healthcare providers to correct often simple urological problems that devastate people's lives. Last fall she participated in a three-week volunteer trip to Tibet with One HEART, an organization that trains physicians and birth volunteers on sterile birth techniques and emergency rescue measures.

VISTA Staffing Solutions is a leading provider of temporary physician staffing and permanent physician search services, and the only agency that offers short- and long-term domestic jobs, international work opportunities in New Zealand and Australia, and permanent placement for physicians.

About On Assignment
On Assignment, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASGN), is a diversified professional staffing firm providing flexible and permanent staffing solutions in specialty skills including Laboratory/Scientific, Healthcare/Nursing/Physicians, Medical Financial, Information Technology and Engineering. The corporate headquarters is located in Calabasas, California. On Assignment, Inc. was founded in 1985 as Lab Support and went public in 1992. The company's branch network encompasses over 80 branch offices across the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and also provides physicians in Australia and New Zealand.