SOUTH POINT — It came out of a job he had in the Army. Now Brad Runyon has turned that into a growing

business

— L.S. Services Inc.

The South Point-based company provides medical and legal transcription for government agencies, both federal and state, hospitals, medical clinics, doctors and lawyers in private practices.

Runyon, who is originally from Ashland, Ky., served in the Army for 20 years and during that time managed the legal office for the Judge Adjutant General, supervising court reporters there.

“When I got out of the Army, I did some freelance court reporting,” he said.

That was after he returned to the Tri-State area and the work was for public service commissions and private lawyers who needed transcripts from witness depositions taken before trials.

That work segued into Runyon bidding on a contract for legal transcription for the state of West Virginia, which he won.

“That required us to hire some people. It’s been one contract bid after another,” Runyon said.

It’s a profession that the technological age has transformed. At one time court transcripts were done in shorthand and typed up into documents. When Runyon started, the computer age had yet to take over the field.

“It was a lot of hard work, a lot of traveling and late nights,” he said.

In the Army, instead of taking dictation, Runyon would use a recorder called a steno-mask for the hearings he covered.

“You’d speak into a hand-held devise that recorded your voice. You’d repeat everything everybody is saying,” he said. “It’s an art. I still repeat evidence people say. I would record that in a tape and that is what we would type from.”

Now proceedings such as administrative hearings are recorded digitally then sent to Runyon’s firm.

“We put them on our service and legal transcriptionists pull the voice file off the server and type up the hearing,” he said.

Recent laws now require extensive documentation for doctor’s office visits and medical procedures. The physicians will either dictate the information over the telephone lines into a server or use a handheld digital recorder where the information is sent to the transcriptionist digitally.

“We link into hospitals. We network with them, type up the reports and put the electronic medical record right into the hospital system,” Runyon said.

This year, Runyon’s company merged with iMedX, out of Shelton, Conn., making L.S. Services a wholly owned subsidiary.

Right now the firm has about 40 on staff and also uses subcontractors.

“We could employ 100 more people now if we could get them,” he said.

As far as his success Runyon gives the credit elsewhere.

“The Lord gives us plenty,” he said.