Ashely Trout (left) and Alyson LaVarnway, The Osprey, copyright Victoria Wright.

Two wine industry veterans, Ashley Trout and Alyson LaVarnway, have launched a recruitment firm for the Washington wine and hospitality industries. The firm is called The Osprey.

“Right now, the wine industry is in a real tipping point in many ways in Washington State,” Trout says. “You’re going to see a lot of change over the next few years. We think it’s time for a recruitment firm.”

Trout believes that the coming changes will be driven by a variety of factors. Some wineries will be growing, other wineries will be contracting, and there will be a continued trend toward consolidation within the industry.

“I think what’s going to happen in the next five years is, you’re going to have a lot of people who are pretty well-trained looking for jobs for various reasons,” Trout says.

Company has three offerings

The Osprey’s first offering, and main goal, is to help place full-time employees with employers.

Ninety percent of Washington wineries are small, family-run wineries, and the vast majority of them were started in the last 25 years. As businesses grow, Trout believes they will be changing the types of positions they hire for.

“I think what got us through the growth period of the late ‘90s until now [in the Washington wine industry] was that amazing jack-of-all-trades employee,” Trout says. “But what got us to now is not what’s going to get us to the future. The future looks more like experts in their fields.”

In addition to helping place people, The Osprey will provide assistance with other aspects of the hiring process. This includes employment verification, social media checks, and reference checks. For full-time placements, The Osprey will charge employers a percentage of the hire’s first year salary.

The second offering is career coaching. This is aimed at people who are looking to advance in their careers or perhaps move to a different part of the industry.

“We are not the experts in that, but we do have career coaches with PhDs who can help people find a new trajectory,” Trout says.

Finally, the Osprey will connect wineries with consultants who have expertise across a variety of domains.

A changing Washington wine industry

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