Executive Suite: James Owens, Carco Group

Carco Group Inc. is as low-profile as the submarines on which its chief executive once served. There is only one small sign to indicate its presence at the building it shares with two federal agencies in Holtsville.

But the investigative company founded 36 years ago touches more lives than most people probably realize -- especially if they buy a used car or apply for a job.

One of its core businesses is arranging for the photography and physical inspection of about 8 percent of newly purchased used cars at thousands of stations in four states, including New York.

The inspections, done for insurance companies to prevent buyers from filing claims for damages that existed before they bought the car, account for half of Carco's $50 million in annual revenues, according to president and chief executive James C. Owens, 44, a former Naval submarine officer. Owens joined Carco in 2003 as chief information officer and later became CEO. Founder Peter O'Neill, an ex-FBI agent, still is company chairman.

Carco's other core business is doing background checks of prospective employees -- a growing field, says Owens, because of incidents of workplace violence and because, as the economy improves, hiring is picking up. Carco also investigates suspected fraud for client companies.

Since superstorm Sandy, Carco has begun checking every vehicle identification number of the cars it inspects against a federal database, looking for flood-totalled vehicles being passed off as cream puffs. It also is having its inspection stations look for flood damage.

It's been more than seven months since Sandy. Do we still have to worry about getting stuck with a used car damaged in the storm?

More than ever. There are estimates that up to half a million cars were affected by Sandy. Over the next year or so those vehicles are gradually going to be disposed of one way or another. Some of them will be crushed out of existence and sold off for spare parts, but unfortunately a large fraction of them are going to end up back in the active pool.

But if they were declared total losses, their certificates of title should be "branded" to indicate they're salvaged cars. And that information gets relayed to the National Motor Vehicle Information System. What's the problem?

Unfortunately, that's not going to be the case 100 percent of the time. Cars are going to leak past, because not everybody puts the salvage brands on like they're supposed to. Sometimes the car may have had its insurance lapse, and the owner just sells it directly to a junk yard or salvage company and they fail to put the brand on the title.

So if you inadvertently buy a car that leaked past, will the insurance company refuse to cover the car?

That may happen. They may tell the car owner to take the issue back to the person they bought it from.

When did you get into pre-employment background screening?

A year after the car inspection program [around 1978]. The background screening program is very influenced by the economy, so the two sides of the business have different performance characteristics. When there's not much hiring going on, there's not much background screening. The vehicle inspection business is steadier, because there's always a constant flow of people buying cars.

Do you find that more companies now are background checking because of all the workplace violence incidents there have been?

Yes. Between 85 and 90 percent of companies are doing some form of background screening now. Thirty years ago, that was maybe 5 percent. And most of what was being done was sort of ad hoc by the companies themselves.

What are you looking for in a background check?

Often the background screening depends upon the position. Higher-risk positions have more comprehensive screenings done. If you have a job that doesn't require a specific level of education, we won't recommend running an education check. For criminal records, how far back you look and then what crimes might be considered as disqualifying vary with the nature of the position.

Do you do any personal interviewing -- do you call friends, relatives, neighbors?

Occasionally. There are times, for high-level investigations, we'll do that kind of very intrusive background checking.

Do companies ever ask you specifically to find out if a candidate for a job is a gun enthusiast?

Very rarely. If you look at some of the horrible [gun violence] incidents that have happened, I will tell you that the background checks would not have found anything on some of these individuals. Increasing background checks for gun purchases is a good idea -- don't get me wrong -- but I think there are unrealistic expectations about what that's going to do. It's not foolproof, but it is one of many tools that need to be used.

Is there any way of using a publicly available database to determine if an individual is psychologically prone to go off like that?

No. Deciding whether someone is psychologically unstable is a professional opinion that has to be rendered by a psychologist or psychiatrist. It's not something you can develop based on hearsay material, second- or third-hand from the Internet. It's very easy to go back and look at someone's Facebook profile and say, well, it's clear now that the incident happened. But if the incident didn't happen, could you take those materials beforehand and divine that this person was a risk to society and do it in a predictable enough way that you don't discriminate against people that really don't have a problem? That's the issue.

Corporate snapshot

NAME: James C. Owens, president and chief executive of The Carco Group Inc. in Holtsville

WHAT IT DOES:Corporate risk management, fraud investigation, vehicle inspection, employee background checks.

EMPLOYEES:About 250, including about 110 on Long Island

REVENUE:About $50 million annually