Feb. 8, 2002. Founded in 1986, the Lee Perfect Transcription Company has grown from one typewriter in Linda Manderfeld's closet to having 280 transcriptionists. The company, which has an office at 680 N. Lakeshore as well as satellite offices in Orland Park and Elgin, serves over 1500 physicians nationwide and has branched out into the legal industry and teleconferencing scripts, boasting clients such as Sprint Communications and Ameritech.

Manderfeld, the founder and president of Lee Perfect, said her business was "born out of necessity." A former employee of the Illinois Department of Revenue, Manderfeld's path toward her own business was dizzying. She was married in December of 1986 only to learn the following April that her husband was dying of cancer.

"We found out that he had cancer and he died Memorial Day. I was pregnant with my son (born in September 1987), so I was a single parent. I needed to make more money basically, I needed to provide for my son. And my mother had Alzheimer's so I had to sell her house. So it was just me."

Manderfeld found a second job, working in a surgeon's office, and built a reputation in medical transcription services. "He [the surgeon] was one reference, but I started working for my [late] husband's oncologist typing at home. We did a good job and word spreads."

After starting out alone, Manderfeld soon had five typists working for her and the company evolved with the emergence of the PC. Lee Perfect is now very much an online business—using an application developed by EMDAT (Electronic Medical Dictation and Transcription), clinicians are able to use a hand-held recorder and send dictations via an Internet connection for transcription. The company touts its services as 'Quality transcription using the latest proven technology.'

Lee Perfect also offers clinicians the chance to do it the old fashioned way by mailing in cassette tapes or through Dictaphone digital dictation, where a clinician logs into the system, identifies the patient and speaks over the phone. The company utilizes close to 500 independent contractors, said Manderfeld, and will be looking to utilize voice activation technology in the future.

"I guess a positive came out of a pretty difficult beginning," said Manderfeld. "If you just work hard enough---I had two jobs at the beginning but I had to do this. You have to pay your bills and you can make it."