Fremont’s RTG Medical sold to Omaha firm Triage Staffing (2024)

UPDATED: 6:32 p.m., Friday, Aug. 30.

Fremont-based RTG Medical has been sold to Omaha-based medical staffing company Triage Staffing, officials with RTG confirmed to the Tribune on Wednesday, Aug. 28.

Karna Dam, a spokesperson for RTG Medical, verified a tip sent to the Tribune that the local company that provides travel nurses throughout the nation had been sold to Triage, and she said that the sale was finalized sometime on Wednesday.

In a telephone interview with the Tribune, Dam said tips about the sale were “accurate,” but stated it had only been announced hours earlier that that she did not “have any additional details available to share.”

In a statement to the Tribune, Triage Staffing CEO John Maaske said he and others with the Omaha-based firm were “excited” to acquire RTG Medical.

“Nebraska’s medical staffing roots run deep and we’re excited that a company and neighbor we’ve admired for such a long time is joining the Triage family,” Maaske said in the email. “RTG is a great company with a solid brand in the healthcare staffing industry. We look forward to bringing our teams together so we can best serve our clients and healthcare professionals.”

According to a statement from Triage on Friday, Aug. 30, RTG Medical co-founder and current chief operating officer Jeremy Guenthner, "will move to a new role within Triage."

Charlie Janssen, a co-founder of RTG Medical and the company's now-former president and CEO, "will be exiting with the acquisition."

Through a spokesperson Janssen issued a statement about the sale of the company and his departure.

"RTG is excited to be part of Triage. We have known them for over 20 years, and this is the absolute best fit – they are a great company," Janssen was quoted as stating. "This will create a lot of opportunities for our employees, clients and healthcare professionals.”

Maaske stated in the press release that he was elated to haveGuenthner move into a leadership role with Triage, and that he and others were thankful for Janssen's leadership at RTG Medical.

“We wish Charlie nothing but the best as he moves to a new chapter and we're looking forward to bringing Jeremy to Triage," Maaske stated in the release. "Jeremy brings a wealth of experience and industry relationships. Together we’re ready to attack the current market and help facilities find the talent they need."

Dam said RTG company officials will announce more details on the sale in the coming days, but she did acknowledge that employees at the medical staffing company had been informed of the sale to Triage.

“The (RTG) employees have all been spoken to. So they all know where they stand. I have not been given anything yet,” she said of additional details.

The announcement of the sale of RTG Medical comes five months after the company terminated more than 24% of its workforce, which was effective as of March 27.

The changes in staffing reduced the number of employees from 135 to 102, Dam verified at the time. The staff who lost jobs in March were not travel nurses, but support staff based in the Fremont office.

That March staff reduction came less than two years after RTG Medical relocated to a new, hyper-modern office complex on the east side of U.S. Highway 275, south of U.S. Highway 30 in the Gallery 23 East business park.

At the time of the company’s planned move to the new facility in fall 2022, RTG Medical CEO and founder Charlie Janssen told the Tribune that the new facility “will allow the business to expand to 240 to 250 employees.”

In explaining the March jobs reduction, Dam attributed the terminations to “natural highs and lows” that can occur in any industry.

“It was our hope that the healthcare staffing industry would recover from the current low, but unfortunately that did not happen,” Dam said in April. “Therefore, the necessary cuts were made universally across all departments and divisions to balance the company to the current market.”

Dam described RTG Medical’s main area of work as “healthcare staffing,” notably travel nurses. Founded more than 20 years ago, RTG Medical was first located at 1005 E. 23rd St.

As it grew, the company relocated to Paden Plaza in Fremont, where it stayed until about 2004. According to Tribune archive articles, RTG Medical expanded its location in 2016 at First State Bank, which it had become a banking client of in 2015.

In a 2021 interview with former Tribune reporter Collin Spilinek, Janssen said RTG Medical has had its ups and downs in times like the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, the COVID-19 pandemic and other disasters where medical personnel are needed.

“It definitely always throws a dynamic at things,” Janssen said in 2021. “One of the exciting things about being in this industry, you’re affected in this job daily by what happens around our nation.”

Triage Staffing spokesperson Emilie Wells said in an email that more specifics of the purchase would be fully unveiled the week of Sept. 2.

On its website, the company is described as being founded in 2006 and engaged in services, including serving “five major divisions of acute care — nursing, lab, radiology, rehab therapy and cardiopulmonary.”