Govcon Giants

Helleni (Donovan) Moon , CEO of EIDOS Technologies from Manassa, founded the company in 2015. Just a couple years later, EIDOS was nominated for the 2021 Prince William Chamber business award. She has over 20+ years of successful service delivery for both federal and civilian agencies and has contributed to their mission-critical government programs.

Helleni provides strategic direction on corporate growth strategies, company culture, workforce and recruiting initiatives to capture top talent which is at the core for providing great customer support, quality service, and impactful changes.

She firmly believes that organizations must invest in mature business practices and top talent to ensure we deliver with pique performance. The company is also certified in ISO 9001:2015 for Quality Management Systems and ISO 20000-1:2018 for Technology Services. These two disciplines are at the forefront of their company culture.

In this episode, Helleni and I discuss what it takes to grow a small business in the IT sector. What was hard now that still remains difficult today, how to prepare for the pressures ofbusiness, challenges, her past experience working for GD, Lockheed and much more in this conversation.

In today's episode Maria interviewed James Lee, an IT professional who decided it was time to make his mark on the world. Without spoiling the story I will tell you that James had a little special someone who help spark the idea for pursuing laundry service contracts. That's right! He did not pursue any sexy or sleek big money idea, it was something so simple that most people overlook.

James always had ideas but the fear of failure always stopped him from moving forward. Since retirement, he knew that he was right around the corner and he needed to start looking at what his next journey would be after the military. After 16 years of military service, he finally decided to take a leap of faith in the entrepreneur field by creating Home Away From Home Laundry-Services.

Now his company is a full-service linen supply and dry-cleaning company with multiple employees at various locations. They offer several services like dry cleaning, laundry, wash, dry and folding, alteration, pick up and drop off delivery services, and bidding on both federal and local state laundry services contracts.

Pay particular attention to this episode because James does not live on the continental U.S. but his contracts are in Florida and California. Stay until the end to see what tips James shares about how he was able to pull off winning a contract from a tropical island.

Wade Watts serves as the inaugural National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) University Program Director (UPD) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). In this role, Wade is responsible for building collaboration between academia, the venture/business community, and the DoD by expanding defense innovation.

To this position, Wade brings significant entrepreneur and academic experiences as the former founder, CEO, and COO of two startup companies, and an award-winning executive with more than 15 years of experience in management consulting positions at Booz Allen Hamilton and other firms. He served as CEO of his management consulting firm by establishing marketing campaigns and Internet presence for businesses through process engineering and strategic planning to maximize profits and customer satisfaction. He also worked as Chief Operating Officer of an Internet-based international business magazine that set up business opportunities and ventures between U.S. firms and businesses in Taiwan and managed offices in both locations.

In his capacity with Booz Allen Hamilton, Wade was key to the international firm winning a $1 billion government contract, the largest in its history at that time. As the company's transition planning expert, he developed and authored a firm-wide Transition Strategic Plan, which standardized new procedures and implementation plans to move and integrate new business from incumbent companies/contractors to the firm's new contracts and business.

Wade has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Master of Public Administration from Troy University, and a Master of Airpower Art and Science from the Air Force's premiere strategy school, the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. Additionally, he has Project Manager Professional (PMP) and Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt certifications.

In the academic world, Wade developed and taught graduate courses in Business Consulting and Project Management as Adjunct Faculty at Creighton University and served as a Capstone course mentor for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program at Midland University in Omaha, Nebraska.

His other leadership experience includes time in a senior Program Management capacity for Omaha-based Fiserv. He also worked as a Cybersecurity Initiative Program Manager for a financial services firm in Lincoln, NE, where he formed, led, and managed a Program Management Office.

Wade is a veteran of the Air Force, having served in various aviation and staff positions throughout the globe, including assignments to United States Strategic Command and the 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

Aliahu "Alli" Bey started his government contracting journey in 2015 after he was awarded a multi-million-dollar U.S. Air Force tactical weapons support contract. One portion of the contract provided cybersecurity on ruggedized deployable laptops.

Mr. Alli Bey reached out to a former business colleague, Adam Austin, owner of a cyber company in Pennsylvania. Mr. Austin's experience and involvement was a no-brainer and he was promptly brought on as a partner that led to developing Totem's Cybersecurity Planning Tool, a revolutionary organizational software that meshes perfectly with cybersecurity and compliance requirements for our existing DoD contracts.

Mr. Alli Bey, CEO of Haight Bey & Associates took expertise in supporting meteorological stations into a business. The veteran owned company specializes in industrial, commercial, and government systems sustainment and cybersecurity engineering solutions.

Mr. Alli believes that proper cybersecurity and compliance are much more than pretty packaging and eye-catching graphics. As they have been awarded and currently execute government contracts, they help others customize a plan to get their company up to speed. Their company also provides cybersecurity consulting and training services to help others get compliant and secure through a very competitive cost.

In today's episode of Making a Giant we present to you veteran business owner Liseth Velez, CEO of LJV Development. She has recently become a superstar at the Govcon EDU breakout sessions as her company continues to land contract after contract both at the federal and state government levels.

Started out in the military as an HVAC Technician, Liseth is no stranger to hardwork or the construction industry. When she formed her company LJV, she immediately started to win small projects and dove into the private sector flipping homes. Yet even with her past experience and revenue under her belt, the government sector was risk averse and wanted to see more.

I remember the very first time meeting her at a conference here in South Florida where I moderated a panel discussing government contracting. Miss Velez attended the conference while she was supposed to be recovering from a recent surgery and was walking on crutches. She literally Uber-ed 45 minutes from her hotel to Miami to attend an event in another city exposing herself to like minded individuals which I would say is pretty remarkable.

Many of us out there would rather make excuses than to do the hard work. Liseth did the opposite. She took advantage of her time off and used it to help catapult her business, I knew at that point she would be a star in the making. Learning that she was in the construction industry serving New England as do I, we exchanged information and has been friends since that day. I'm so happy for her success and can't wait to see what the next few years has in store for LJV.

Over the next 60 minutes, Maria and Liseth discuss her early beginnings as a newly formed company with no federal past performance doing all that she can to get early wins. Enjoy this episode with the two of my favorite students Maria and Liseth.

Anthony Closson is a USAF Veteran and the Founder and CEO of Colossal Contracting- an SDVOSB Value-Added Reseller and IT Solutions Provider that has broken away from the pack bringing them to the forefront of the Defense and Civilian Industries by embodying their foundation as a company built upon military core values.

Anthony brings to the table more than a decade of executive leadership experience and over 15 years of managing IT integrations. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and holds a Master's of Business Administration with a Specialization in Project Management.

While deployed in Iraq and when working stateside at Joint Base Andrews, Closson learned first hand about the value of the relationship between government employees and civilian contractors. Taking that knowledge, experience, work ethic and sense of responsibility for the success of any of their customer's missions, Anthony established Colossal as a dynamic force within a crowded and challenging industry.

A decade later, Colossal now supports mission-critical systems and services across dozens of government agencies on a global scale, growing the company every year since its inception in 2009. Colossal now holds five GWAC's and an array of agency specific BPAs and IDIQs.

Anthony's intensity and motivation are equal in business and philanthropy as Colossal is an avid sponsor for nonprofit organizations. Last year Colossal was selected as the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Small Employer of the Year for their efforts in hiring and supporting the members of our armed services. The company is proud to claim that more than 1 in 4 employees are veterans, reservists or members of the national guard. Anthony led Colossal's first ever "22 For You Day" partnering with Mission22, a non-profit dedicated to veteran suicide prevention and raised over $30,000 for the cause.

As his company continues to expand, Closson has not lost sight of the importance of taking care of your customers personally and specifically embodying the role of a servant leader by guiding the entire company to operate with intentionality and integrity. He is humbled by this opportunity to share his journey, his successes, his mistakes and the lessons he has learned with other small business owners and industry professionals so they can too can succeed.

Hey listeners, this is Eric! As some of you may know from listening to the last few week's episodes we have a new podcast entitled Making A Giant. The show featured the students of GovCon EDU who recently won their first contract. It is a much different perspective from our traditional podcast format where we interview experts in contracting.

This show features everyday people who decided to take the plunge into the world of federal procurement and was successfully awarded with their very first contract. Many of my listeners had a difficult time identifying with the multi-million dollar business owners and wanted to hear from the person who is just starting out.

This week's episode of Making A Giant I want you to meet Alex. Alex' dad was a cab driver so he was part of running the operation by answering the house phone since he was a kid. He was contracted out by a big company that did I.T. stuff overseas where he started at the bottom, got a good mentor and was able to work himself to the top. Then he realize that he could do much better contracting and make money for himself so he did just that.

He is now in Hawaii doing what he did for others but for himself, meet today's guest making a Giant with Alex Omeke.

For the first time ever we are interviewing someone from APTAC (Association of Pocurement Technical Assistance Centers).

If you have never heard of APTAC or PTAC for short, the non-organization has offices around the country in every state that provide free and low cost training and technical assistance for small businesses. They host workshops and matchmaking events, offer one-on-one counseling and can provide you with resources to reach federal, state and local government agencies. My recommendation is that every small business owner should at the very least try and get acquainted with their local PTAC. If not for the fact that the organization is funded bytax payers, so to do a free consultation is a no brainer.

Our guest today, Melissa Burant is a Government Contracting Specialist with the Iowa Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) serving clients in Scott and Clinton counties. Before working at PTAC Melissa served as a federal contracting officer at the Army Contracting Command, Rock Island, and has more than 15 years of federal service.

In this episode she shares:

▪how to help small businesses avoid pitfalls

▪some of the service offered by PTAC

▪small business horror story and more

In our second episode of Making a Giant Maria sits down and speak to Leilani Lacusong.

Leilani is an accountant that saw the great opportunities in government contracting. She made some bold moves from applying for her 8a, to contacting Eric for help and driving from state to state "for the love of contracting". Today she has won a few sole source with the help of the Govcon Giants community.

Listen as she tells us her journey to win her first contract.

Today's guest needs no introduction...

Mr. Steven Koprince of Koprince Law founded the blog SmallGovCon, where he has written more than 1,100 posts on government contracting legal issues. The site is viewed by thousands of readers each month and is one of the official must read websites for learning about new rules, changing policies and court findings in federal procurement.

Steven is the author ofThe Small-Business Guide to Government Contracts(AMACOM Books, 2012) and Steven has also written comprehensive handbooks entitledJoint Ventures,SBA Size and Affiliation Rules, and The 8(a) Program.

Steven has been quoted in several national news outlets, has appeared on numerous radio programs and podcasts, and has spoken to dozens of audiences across the country on government contracting matters.

In today's conversation we discuss:

▪his background and personal journey into the world of government

▪small business tip learned from years of experience

▪top 5 mistakes all businesses make when tackling government contracting.

As a nine-time speaker at the national conference of the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers, Steven knows a thing or two about government contracting. We are so happy to finally have him here on our show. Turn off all your devices, grab a notepad and be prepared to take copious notes.