Riding the boom in staffing services.

Amid the starched, white tablecloths and sparkling stemware of New York's Bruno's, a tony Upper East Side Italian bistro, Frank Liguori momentarily steps out of his tightly buttoned-down character. An imposing, muscular figure who looks a bit like Robert Duvall's slicked-back consigliori in the film, "The Godfather," Liguori grimaces and waves his hands as if to ward off an evil spirit. The chairman and CEO of staffing-services giant Olsten Corp. is responding to a tongue-in-cheek question about another movie, "The Temp," a ghastly, 1993 bust about a junior executive stalked by a homicidal assistant.

"I saw a little bit of the tape," says Liguori, 49, ending his pantomime criticism with two thumbs down. But Liguori rapidly segues back to the original subject: how Olsten screens its employees. "We're not psychologists," Liguori says. "To make the appropriate placement, we evaluate skills, we check references, we offer training." Pausing for a second to complete the thought, he adds: "We just do whatever it takes."

An accurate summary of Liguori's no-excuses business philosophy. If it sounds a bit like a Nike commercial, however, it's because in the past two years, he barely has stopped to take a breath. Since plunking down Olsten stock for $885 million home health-care company Lifetime Corp. in 1993 - a company then larger than his own - Liguori has behaved like a Monopoly player on amphetamines, expanding his two core business lines and snapping up every property in sight. The result is a Fortune 500 company with $2.26 billion in revenues, poised to grow and driven by distinct, cost-conscious corporate megatrends: the moves away from fixed staffing and toward inexpensive, home-based health care.

On his way to the bank, Liguori must clear some significant hurdles. The staffing-services business is acutely sensitive to a downturn in the economy, which some analysts say may be facing slower growth in 1996. With Melville, NY-based Olsten pushing hard in acquisitions, Liguori has placed it on a collision course with other hungry home-care players, such as $1 billion Apria Healthcare, recently formed through a merger of Abbey Healthcare and Homedco Group. Perhaps most significant, roughly 15 percent of Olsten's revenues come from Medicare, recently assaulted by Newt's slash-and-burn commandos on Capitol Hill.

Liguori has a ready response to all of the above: Health care, he says, which comprises nearly half of Olsten's revenues, will offset some of the volatility in temporary services. Final Medicare legislation likely will reduce the maximum allowable billing rate, but cost-efficient providers with economies of scale, such as Olsten, will wring out a healthy profit anyway. And acquisition challenges? Though Liguori won't say so, he is cut from the same cloth as current M&A masters such as NationsBank's Hugh McColl, treating acquisitions almost as a separate business line as he pieces together a nationwide service organization. "Consolidation is a skill," Liguori says tersely, leaving no doubt about Olsten's proficiency in the area. "And restructuring never comes to an end."

There was a time such bravado had Wall Street rolling in the aisles. Particularly after the Lifetime acquisition, which plunged Olsten $26.6 million into the red, the second-guessers were out in force. Paid too much in a bidding war with Abbey, ran one train of thought. Taking on too much debt, ran another, referring to Lifetime's sky-high, long-term obligations, equal to more than half its total capitalization. All along, Liguori stuck to his guns, maintaining Lifetime would balance Olsten and expand its beachhead in a rapidly growing business.

Look who's smiling now: Olsten's revenues this year are projected to reach $2.45 billion, with net earnings jumping 25.8 percent to more than $88 million. In any given week, Olsten employs some 125,000 people, ranking as the 24th largest employer on the Fortune 500 list ahead of Chrysler, Boeing, DuPont, Prudential, and other household names. The company's stock recently was trading at more than $40 a share, a 52-week high.

"The ongoing shift to lower-cost healthcare settings such as the home, and the dramatic growth in business and industry temporary staffing needs should result in continued revenue growth acceleration for Olsten," says Geoffrey E. Harris, an analyst with Smith Barney in New York. Geographic and growing international diversity doesn't hurt either, says Harris, noting the company's expansion into South America and Continental Europe. The analyst projects long-term earnings-per-share growth of between 15 percent and 20 percent.

As doctors, hospitals, and managed-care providers scramble to cut escalating costs, Olsten's size and full-service array of home nursing services, case management, pediatric care, occupational and speech therapies, and drug infusion leave it well-equipped to gobble up more of the mom-and-pop players that predominate in the industry. The home-care market has doubled since 1992 to $23.6 billion and will continue to grow at a double-digit clip, according to estimates by the Department of Commerce and the Omnicomp Group.

Solid growth also is expected for temporary services, a business undergoing dramatic changes. Now, more often, sizable groups of temporaries are called in to supplement a company's permanent work force, particularly during periods of peak demand. The National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services said temp companies in the second quarter generated $9.57 billion in revenue and $6.8 billion in industry payroll. Those figures are up 12.2 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively, from the previous year. And Omnicomp estimates that the penetration of temporary help workers in the work force continues to grow and should reach 1.6 percent by year's end, up from 1.45 percent in 1994.

Liguori took over as CEO in 1990 and chairman in 1992, the first outsider to run Olsten after Bill Olsten, who founded the company in 1950. (The Olsten family still owns 22 percent of the company's stock, with second-generation Stuart Olsten remaining as president and vice chairman.) Liguori began his career with Big Six accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand. He is busy pushing Olsten into new businesses, such as information services. With more sophisticated personal computer and other technology skills required of temporary staffers, he says, "there's a natural convergence between the two businesses." Olsten also has taken on the management of hospital-based home-care agencies. But the buzzword in businesses across the board, Liguori says, is "partnering," under which the company's executives work with senior corporate officers - rather than HR departments - to assess staffing needs, sometimes even setting up shop at client companies to test and interview applicants for temporary positions.

In an industry plagued by pricing and ethical violations, Olsten voluntarily has adopted a stiff operational code known as The Gold Standard. But Liguori stops short of calling for across-the-board controls. "We've got enough regulations," he says. "How will more help?" Besides, as global competition stiffens and consolidation in home care continues, "the market will recognize quality players," Liguori says. "And nonquality players just won't play."

PROFILE

FRANK N. LIGUORI Chairman and Chief Executive OLSTEN CORP.

Born: Williamsburg (Brooklyn), NY; July 2, 1946. Son of a butcher.

Education: Bachelor's of Business Administration, St. Francis College, New York, 1967; honorary doctor of laws, St. Joseph's College, New York; certified public accountant.

Family: Wife, Jo Ann; children, Frank Jr. and Mark.

Boards: Member of the Listed Company Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange, and vice chairman of the board of the Home Health Services and Staffing Association.

Outside interests: Golfer with a 15 handicap. "But I'm not one of those executives who carries his golf clubs on business trips."

Car: Currently drives a Mercedes SL-500, two-seat roadster; recently ordered a Jaguar Vanden Plus, a long-wheelbase sedan.

Pet project: Developing a five-acre plot of land in Lloyd's Harbor, Long Island.

Pet peeve: Perpetual planning.

Favorite book: "I read for information and not for pleasure."

Favorite saying: "If you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem."