Jo Anne Gabbert was becoming increasingly annoyed -- and embarrassed.

Her 6-year-old daughter had opened the office door once, twice and a third time. Just a crack. Just enough to send a paper airplane flying in.

Gabbert, owner and president of Adams-Gabbert & Associates Inc. in Lee's Summit, was trying to interview a job applicant on that day earlier this year. Instead, she was frustrated by her daughter and "apologizing all over myself."

The last airplane that glided through landed on Gabbert's desk. Inside, a note written in red ink said: "I love you Mom. From Maddie."

Gabbert remembers smiling and thinking: "That's why I started this company. That's why I'm doing this."

Adams-Gabbert, founded in 1999, is an independent telecommunications and utility consulting firm.

But unlike many consulting firms -- especially the Big Five, where consultants work 60-hour weeks and spend a good bit of time traveling -- Adams-Gabbert keeps its consultants close to home and their overtime to a minimum.

One of the company's core goals is to create a work-life balance -- to provide employees with challenging work in Kansas City and clients with high-quality, affordable services; and to afford employees time for their personal lives.

For Gabbert, that balance means continuing a career and making breakfast every morning for Maddie and her son, David, 8, and sometimes bringing them to the office after school.

"I tell our clients this: We want to work between 40 and 45 hours a week. If the job requires work over that on a consistent basis, then we're probably not the company for you," Gabbert said.

That philosophy, she admits, sometimes means turning away business.

"It's hard when you see a client with a need, and you know a competitor will get them," she said. "But you can see dollar signs, or you can provide your consultants with what you sold them."

It's a unique business model.

"This is unusual, especially in the consulting business. Consulting is very competitive, and the typical model is to require long hours and at least a moderate amount of travel," said Nancy Day, a professor of human resources at the Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

But it appears to be working.

Sales in 2000, Adams-Gabbert's first full year in business, were $1.8 million. Gabbert estimates sales this year of $2.5 million.

The company has 15 employees; many of its consultants have Big Five experience. The company specializes in project management, business analysis and vendor management for front- and back-office operations. Its work might include developing measures a company could use to track its performance or creating billing systems or databases for order-entry information.

"Jo Anne came to us sporting some talented resources," said Troy Trybom, senior manager of strategic projects for Sprint Corp.'s PCS division, an Adams-Gabbert client. "She had people with the experience we were looking for, who knew what they were doing, who knew the technology and could hit the ground running."

For nine years beginning in 1987, Gabbert worked for Southwestern Bell in St. Louis in development and project-management positions in billing, customer information systems, marketing, sales and order entry.

She joined Ernst & Young's Kansas City office in 1996. She spent much of her time at Sprint, leading teams that were working on improved billing technologies, customer information systems and sales force automation processes

Gabbert loved the work but not the hours and the travel. Early-morning meetings meant she was able to make breakfast for her children only once or twice a month. Gabbert and her husband, an IBM software salesman, would coordinate child care over cell phones as they drove in opposite directions down Interstate 435.

Afraid her children might one day say, "Mommy who?" she decided to scale back.

"I am a career-minded professional, but I was worried my kids would grow up thinking my work was more important to me than them," she said.

Gabbert left Ernst & Young in May 1999. She spent the summer with her children and wrote a business plan. She intended to work as an independent consultant when school resumed in August.

Gabbert invested $5,000 of her money to get the business going. Half of that was for a laptop computer. She signed up for a free e-mail account with Yahoo. By October, she had recouped her investment.

When some consulting colleagues heard about what she was doing, they were intrigued. Gabbert discovered other consultants with Big Five experience trying to balance 60-hour workweeks with their personal lives. She also found retired consultants not quite ready to quit working.

That led to her business model, the particulars of which she developed along the way.

Gabbert paid the consultants she hired salaries instead of based on billable hours.

"It would be easier for me to pay them hourly, but I think it promotes a greater sense of team to pay salaries," she said. "That way they're building a company brand and not just being a contractor."

And it motivates consultants to complete assignments within 40- to 45-hour workweeks. This also benefits clients because "they know the work will be done in a defined number of hours," she said.

She said that when client work requires overtime, consultants get additional time off and sometimes larger bonuses.

Gabbert also offers flexible schedules for her office staff. The company's human resources manager works three days a week. Gabbert created a "kids room" at the office where children of employees can come after school.

Gabbert's primary role is to drum up business and oversee day-to-day operations. Sprint was her first client and remains one of her largest. Other clients include UtiliCorp United Inc. and Birch Telecom.

Adams-Gabbert has three consultants working at Sprint. Sprint's Trybom said that working with a small, local consulting firm has proved advantageous.

"They don't seem to be typical consultants," he said. "They seem more like Sprint employees. They have more of a personal involvement with the outcome of projects. It's not like they're waiting to leave at the end of the week.

"And you're in touch with senior management, like Jo Anne. At a Big Five, you're dealing with a local account representative. It's not the same."

Adams-Gabbert does little advertising; most business comes from referrals. Still, Gabbert works hard to get the company's name out, attending business luncheons and other functions. She is looking to expand the firm's work into other industries and is courting Hallmark Cards Inc. and Yellow Freight Systems.

Adams-Gabbert also is thinking about expanding its business model to other markets, such as St. Louis. It's a Catch-22, Gabbert admits.

"We want people to flock to us, but we have to have the resources to fill those needs," she said. "Can I still expand in the model I've created, or do I go outside the reason I started this in the first place? It will be a tell-tell for me."