Govcon Giants

Joshua Duvall is the founder and managing partner at Matross Edwards LLC, a Washington, DC-based government contracts and business law firm serving government contractors nationwide.

Josh is trusted counsel and outside general counsel to small and mid-size government contractors, where he counsels clients in complex government contracts matters, including bid protests (agency level, GAO, COFC), disputes, teaming agreements, subcontracts, joint ventures, regulatory compliance, and cybersecurity. Josh received his law degree from The George Washington University Law School and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

He also has his own blog at GovConJudicata.com which provides news, insights, and legal analysis for anyone interested in staying current with government contracts and cybersecurity issues and finally, he enjoys all things coffee and golf.

In this interview we discuss everything about debriefings, pre-award and post award debriefings. The value and importance of debriefings and how to use debriefings as a business strategy and more.

Today's guest, Nicole Sharp founded her company Griffin Consulting Partners in 2017. Though she formed the corporation, it wasn't until a few years ago that she decided to go full time and really work on the business.

GCP offers solutions in the fed health space and work with companies looking to grow and get into the space. With the mission to combine analytical thinking and intuitive understanding to unleash the full potential of their customers by delivering uniquely tailored consultancy services that are research-based, practice-informed, and results-oriented. Her current clients include VA, military health services throughout DOD, State and local hospitals.

Prior to founding her business Nicole worked at Accenture, B A H, and Kelly Services three large defense contractors. But it was her decision to quit her job and focus on growing her business that changed it all. For the first 6 months she did spend time with friends and simply focused on learning everything about the business. She created a vision board, set her 12 month, 5year and 10 year goals and went to work.

What is so humbling about Nicole was that even after winning her first contract she wondered how she got here. If that seems like an all too familiar circumstance of imposter syndrome stay tuned to this episode to hear what she did next and how she overcame it. I hope that you enjoy this upcoming episode as we take you through the journey of one of our very own GovconEDU alumni.

Sarah Dunn started her career in the insurance industry by chance. She complimented a woman's shoes at a recruiting expo which led to her landing a spot in the highly competitive and prestigious Aetna Healthcare's Group School reserved for the top 1% of applicants after graduating early from college. After graduating as one of the top recruits from the Aetna Group School program, it landed her in the Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia insurance market as a national Aetna consultant for insurance brokers who catered to small and middle market companies, many of which were government contractors. She surprised Aetna management by singlehandedly revitalizing the sales of Aetna health insurance plans by the broker consultants she was assigned to.

Sarah's professionalism, quick wit and her ability to soak in knowledge of the insurance industry and specifically the GovCon industry did not go unnoticed. If fact, within two years of her starting her position at Aetna, she had over 10 job offers to join brokerage companies in the D.C. marketplace alone, many of which were prestigious and highly selective as to whom they brought on board. After much consideration she joined The Capital Group, which is the premier GovCon- specialized insurance brokerage company. The Capital Group has over 800 GovCon clients and offers employee benefits, 401K consulting, compliance, technology, dedicated service team, in-house attorney access to scrub and review contracts at no cost to clients, commercial insurance. The Capital Groups also owns and operates an exclusive captive commercial insurance company for small and mid-size GovCon IT service providers called GovTech. GovTech offers up to 40% off commercial insurance policies which no other brokerage firm has access to offer. Thus, Sarah now had the backing of a diverse team of experts to dive further into the GovCon rabbit hole. Going further to help small businesses specifically, Sarah has created a simplified checklist of all appropriate lines of insurance and benefits benchmarked by company size and industry. She offers free consultations to ensure each group is fitted with the right care which is a big deal as insurance and employee benefits is the #2 largest expense for most companies.

Sarah's passion to help small and mid-size government contractors is now going above and beyond her ability to expertly and uniquely help with their employee benefits and insurance needs. She also now has founded and personally runs a unique and very needed organization in the GovCon industry. It is a group for GovCon Women C-Suite executives simply called Women in GovCon. Women in GovCon is a group of GovCon owners and C-level executives getting together at exclusive events for the purpose of winning more contracts, providing mentorship opportunities and growth strategies. Sarah has partnered with Ferrari of Washington for example, to bring members out on test drives followed by a catered lunch at The Salamander Resort. There are currently 70 members in Women in GovCon and growing. Many members in this group are primes looking for qualified subcontractors which Sarah is happy to speak to small businesses interested in getting involved.

Speaking of, to schedule a meeting with Sarah please reach her via email at: [email protected] or via cell phone (203)751-0158.

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-dunn-61380a138

The Capital Group website: https://www.capgroupfinancial.com

GovTech Insurance website. A reminder that GovTech Insurance is the only insurance company specializing in insuring government contractors and can save GovCon IT companies up to 40% off their commercial insurance policy : https://govtechinsurance.com/

Ariela Wagner is the president and founder of SunRay Construction Solutions. She has over 14 years of construction industry experience. With the mission to be the best and easiest construction document service in the USA, SunRay secures the lien rights of general contractors, subcontractors and suppliers nationally and helps them get paid.

For a nominal fee SunRay ensures that each required Preliminary Notice, Lien and Claim on Bond is carefully, thoroughly and timely executed as per the rules/laws of that state. Many small businesses are left with very little recourse once they run into a problem with a not so great contractor so they provided the solution by maintaining state-of-the-art Preliminary Notice/Notice to Owner system that ensures requests are sent on time, securing lien rights for subcontractors and suppliers throughout the country.

In this episode, Ariela and I discuss how small companies can stay protected during these difficult times when money is a scarce resource. I can tell you from someone who personally went through multiple instances of having to fight to get paid, this solution made a ton of sense to me. Her and I dig into her journey and back story of business hazing, litigation and climbing her way back to the top.

Before we started recording Ariela assured me that nothing was off the table that was the green light I needed to ask away. Listen to my interesting conversation with our next giant, Ariela Wagner.

Today's show is part 2 of a two part series with Roberta Moore. She had so many stories to share that we could not get the all into one single episode.

For those of you who do not know, Ms. Moore began her career as a DoD civil servant for 10 years before opening her business, Amoorer Inc. embarked on her government contracting journey, providing healthcare staffing services back in 2002. She graduated from the 8a program in 2014 but prior to that was part of a group of business owners who all spun out of the same company. Presently that group have all started federal government contracting businesses.

The reason why I decided to bring Roberta back on the show was because she did not get into the details of some of her failure stories. I wanted her to fully explain some of the difficult moments during her journey.

So in this interview we dive right into some of the challenging times stories that seams like its from out of a book. More soap opera and drama, but very real because it involves the harsh reality that one can face when hiring friends and not the best candidate.

We are all growing our companies, and for that reason can learn life lessons from a variety of stories. This interview I believe will help someone make more sound decisions when growing out their team. I hope that you enjoy this episode with our next Giant, Ms. Roberta Moore.

Mike Melo president and CEO of ITA International started his company with his wife. Interestingly, it was Melo's father who inspired the name of his company, ITA. It is derived from a passage in a 1910 speech by Teddy Roosevelt referred to as "The Man in the Arena" in which Roosevelt praises those who work hard and demonstrate values of leadership, integrity, and hard work rather than simply sitting on the sidelines.

ITA International LLC works toward a secure, stable and sustainable world. Their mission is to improve the lives of all people, especially their customers. They operate in over 20 locations worldwide.

Founded in 2005, Mike and his wife's company is a provider of integrated service in the areas of Operational Support, Marine Engineering, Cyber Operations and Data Analytics for those serving "In The Arena" in support of the US Government, Commercial Customers and Non-Government Organizations operating globally.

In today's episode, we discussed how Mike's view on federal contracting shifted since first starting out, we discussed his recent acquisition and the methodology used to determine the good versus bad purchase in the business, the future of ITA and where the company is headed. We also dived into the beginning phases of growth, cash flow and contacts.

Roberta Moore founded AMOORER, Incorporated 19 years ago in 2002 as a recently divorced, single parent of three boys. Amoorer Incorporated is an 8(a) graduate, HUBZone Certified, Woman-Owned Healthcare staffing small business. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from Strayer University and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Maryland University College.

Roberta began her career as a DoD civil servant for 10 years before opening her business, Amoorer Inc in 2002 and embarking on her government contracting journey. A journey that would take her through many whirlwind experiences, some adventure and many character building.

In this episode we discuss how a chance event led to her successfully winning her first contract which was OCONUS and met her 2nd mentor. A woman who gave Ms. Moore a back office which then allowed her business to really take off and begin to thrive.

Ms. Moore has a reputation as a creative problem solver and effective manager capable of making a significant contribution to the corporate bottom-line. Ms. Moore Is a 2019 graduate of the Veterans Affairs Vetbizladies genesis cohort. In 2016 she graduated from the United States Small Business Administration's (SBA) Emerging Leaders, accelerated streetwise MBAprogram.

She has in-depth skills in the development of operational and strategic business planning as well as operations and marketing experience relating to all aspects of business development. Ms. Moore won several multi-million dollar healthcare staffing contracts with the federal government and private industry. She is responsible for setting revenue targets and managing P&L for divisions. She has extensive management experience in developing and defending budgets in support of government programs.

Ms. Moore has detailed experience in financial and business planning and developing policies and procedures appropriate for management of government and private industry programs. Ms. Moore's philosophy is "Commitment, Integrity, Personalized Service and Value for your money.

With more than $247M dollars thrown at training and education of small businesses and little thrown into marketing we try and help showcase the ups and down of the business of govcon. Each week we bring on a speaker who has been involved in either growth as a small business, supporting small and medium size businesses or creates opportunities for either of the two categories

In this episode, we bring you a 2-time guest, Matthew Schoonover, Principle of the law firm Schoonover and Moriarty. Matt has been supporting small businesses for more than a decade speaking, authoring legal news on the subject. On our first interview, episode 006 Back in 2019 we discussed Joint Ventures and Mentor Protege.

Matt has a wide experience representing individual and corporate clients in a range of litigation matters, including commercial litigation, insurance-defense actions, and intellectual property litigation. He practiced in pretrial litigation, and have experience preparing and responding to pleadings; conducting informal fact investigations and formal discovery, including taking and defending party and non-party depositions; motion practice; and advocating for clients at hearings and in mediation.

With that, we talked about expanding on the concept of joint ventures and the new Mentor Protege program. New rule and policy changes from the SBA and how it impacts small firms.

Listen to this valuable interview as this is a free knowledge lesson into how a small medium size business can really grow leveraging the current 2021 SBA programs. So, take notes and you will definitely pick up very important knowledge from this week's guest.

In this episode we feature Miguel Sanchez. After discovering my videos while living in New York Miguel decides he wants to get into truck delivery providing courier services to the government. After months of no results he decided to switch gears and pursue the consulting route.

In his research he learned that IT was a major marketplace with opportunity galore. I know how some people can see it as intimidating considering the size and scale of the contracts. Not Miguel, he decided that's exactly where he fit in and went on his journey to find a partner company that was up for the task.

After a few tries he found a partner who was currently doing IT projects but not maximizing their capabilities. With the knowledge he gained working directly with Maria hand in hand he was able to start pursuing some fairly substantial projects.

Without spoiling the rest of the story he ended up landing something major. The part that I want to share with folks is that when you invest in yourself and your education it pays back dividends. If you are sitting on the sideline waiting for all the answers, for some magic bullet to show up, trying for years unsuccessfully maybe it's time you found a new approach.

Followed a mentor that has been where you've been, experienced some of the same setbacks. We showcase these real human stories to give you a sense of what's possible. But none of this would not have happened if they did not invest in self education.

Today's interview, we talk about something very different. Emily Harman, has 38 years of service to the country as both a Naval Officer and civilian federal employee. Working hard and ultimately, retiring as a member of the Senior Executive Service in May 2019, the equivalent of a two star Admiral.

In her retirement, Emily did the inner work and learned a very valuable tool: listening to the guidance of her inner voice and her authentic self, to create a roadmap for an authentic and fulfilling life. In this episode, we talked about several things about mindset, finding your niche, discovering what you really want and the importance of positive intelligence.

Many of us are interested in only hearing the tactics and the technicalities in government contracting but it is really the mindset that we must first master before we can truly realize our authentic self and eventually pave our way into the ocean of opportunity that the government contracting has to offer.