Small Business Owner Finds Success and Growth with 8(a) Program

Family-Oriented Service Maintenance Company Makes Due on its Promise Two friends Lew Parker and Mitch Caron sought a better way to do business by putting their employees first. In 1991, they founded PC Mechanical Inc. to do just that. Fast forward 19 years to 2010 and Parker, the president and CEO and Caron, the vice president and general manager, are busier than they have ever been primarily because of the loyalty and respect they have earned of their fellow employees and secondly through the assistance of the U.S. Small Business Administrations 8(a) Business Development Program. We knew that we could treat employees better than we had been treated, said Parker. In 1990, after Caron completed a grueling 30-day tour in the Republic of Angola for his previous employer - Caron and Parker launched their own full service, multi-disciplined mechanical repair and service company from Parkers garage. Using Carons pickup truck as the first company vehicle, Parker, Caron and a hand full of their previous coworkers crisscrossed Santa Maria, San Ardo and Bakersfield serving oil field equipment. Within a short period of time they moved out of Parkers garage and into an 8,000 square foot facility in Santa Maria where they operated for 14 years. In 1996, PC Mechanical applied for the SBAs 8(a) Business Development Program to assist in securing government contracts. Parker, a Native American who grew up on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho was accepted into the rigorous 9-year program. Using their extensive experience within the service and maintenance industry and their 8(a) certification, they continued to secure numerous government contracts including their largest-todate a $140 million multi-year military contract they won over competitors worldwide. In June 2009, they began to repair, recondition and maintain thousands of pieces of military equipment including the Navy Seabees bulldozers, cranes and generator sets. The first contract we did like this large one was done seven or eight years ago through the 8(a) program, said Parker. Looking back on the success and growth of PC Mechanical, Parker said, We started a company that caters to employees and that has been the backbone of our company it worked. Currently, PC Mechanical has over 50 employees, and offers extremely competitive benefits including a 100% premium paid for employee medical and dental insurance, a lucrative 401K with a 4% match of gross and a cafeteria plan. Family comes first here, if a family member becomes sick, we let our employees stay home and take care of them and keep them on payroll. Parker also attributed PC Mechanicals success to their 8(a) Business Development Specialist, Catherine Clark, who worked with them during the 9-year program. Catherine was with me 100% of the way and led me all the way through it. She is very personable, helpful and upfront. The 8(a) program was valuable it opened the door to get involved in government contracting, said Parker. PC Mechanical graduated from the 8(a) program in 2005.

In March 2005, PC Mechanical moved out of its previous facility and into a new 67,000 square foot facility in Santa Maria, which they bought. They have also continued to receive numerous awards along the way and recently won Boeings Performance Excellence Award for gold level performance for their work during 2009 at Vandenberg Air Force Base where they have maintained the launch facilities for 15 years. The award is given to Boeings Top 100 Contractors worldwide for meeting and exceeding performance standards for all 365 days of any given year. Also, they are being recognized as an Outstanding Business at the upcoming Spirit of Small Business Awards held in August by the Pacific Coast Business Times and the U.S. Small Business Administrations Los Angeles District Office. The company supports community activities with donations to the Highway Patrol Widows and Orphans, Santa Maria Police Department, the Boys and Girls Club and Food Bank Drives. The owners also sponsor along with their employees local sports and activities. PC Mechanical is one of our most successful graduates of recent memory and a great example of what the 8(a) Business Development Program can do for small businesses. We are proud to have helped them find their way both as a business and as an extended member of the SBA 8(a) family, said Stephen J. Olear, acting district director for the Los Angeles district office. Recently, PC Mechanical was recognized as an outstanding business in North Santa Barbara County at an awards luncheon titled - Spirit of Small Business on Thursday, August 12, 2010 hosted by U.S. Small Business Administration and Pacific Coast Business Times.

Faces of Black History Emmit McHenry

February 27, 2012 by MercXue 0 Comments Emmit McHenry was born in Forrest City, Arkansas, on July 12, 1943, the grandson of a minister. Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, McHenry attended Stewart Elementary School, Carver Middle School and Booker T. Washington High School. After graduating in 1962, he went on to receive his B.S. in communications from the University of Denver in 1966. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, where he attained the rank of lieutenant. McHenry would go on to Northwestern University, where in 1979 he earned his M.S. degree in communications and completed the qualifying examinations for a Ph.D.

In 1979, Emmit McHenry and a few associates start an engineering company name Network Solutions. For 16 years, he and his partners toiled away and built a solid company. They could not get money from the financial institute so they mortgage their properties and max out their credit cards. They were good engineers and got many contracts but the gem within Network Solutions was a contract with the National Science Foundation, which was to create the U.S. Governments and World first domain name addressing system for the Internet. This was back when the Internet was just a government project, and its commercial potential hadnt been realized. Emmit McHenry created a complex computer code whereby ordinary people can now surf the web or have e-mails without having to study computer science. He created what we know today simply as .com. Black Inventor Emmit McHenry Invents the .com (dot com). Emmit McHenry and his partners were ahead in the technology game, but Blacks Business people refuse to join him. On Dec. 31 1992, Network Solutions got the contract that would make the company a legacy. After the government review several company proposals, The National Science Foundation Department selected Network Solution as manager of domain names registration service for the Internet. The contract was for $1 million a year for five years. Network Solution had the sole authority to develop and issue Internet system for Web addresses. What Network Solution developed was .com, .net, .edu, and. gov. to communicate on the Internet. At the time Network Solutions already was handling other sensitive engineering projects for the government. To keep up with the demands the company needed to hire more workers and buy new equipment, but the fixed $1 million a year contract proved to be a constrained because no matter how many names the company registered, it could not charge more. Over the years demand for domain names increase and the company staff grew to 400 employees. Emmit applied to the government to charge directly for the domain names as the request for names continued to increase by the thousands. The government refuses and continues to pay the company $1 million a year for as many requested domain names. Emmit went to wealthy high profile Blacks and they all refuse to invest in his company. He tried the financial institute and Wall Street and they also said no. He got some help from a white fellow engineer but it was not enough. In the mean time the government keeps insisting if he could not keep up with the volume they will break the contract. In 1995 Emmit sold Network Solutions to Science Applications International Corp or SAIC for 4.8 million plus personal and business debt. In a few months the government gives SAIC the rights to charge $70.00 per year for each domain name plus royalty on any other created domain names, the same request Emmit wanted. With millions of people and companies requesting domain names there was a bidding war to buy this new cash cow SAIC acquired. A Wall Street Company name VeriSign Inc. was the winner. SAIC flip the newly purchase 4.8 million company to VeriSign Inc for $21 Billion within a year.

Today Emmit J. McHenry is founder, chairman, and CEO of NetCom Solutions International, Inc. McHenry held various management positions with IBM, Connecticut General, Union Mutual and AllState Insurance Company. He served on several insurance industry committees and was a founding member of the American Productivity Management Association. He then founded Network Solutions, Inc. the internet domain services provider, and in 1995, he founded NetCom Solutions International, a telecommunications, engineering, consulting, and technical services company. The company has received awards for excellent service from IBM, NASA and Lucent Technologies with revenues of $260 million and over 200 employees in Chantilly, Virginia and Oklahoma City. Today, McHenry serves as chairman of VisuTel, a broadband telecommunications company. McHenry is on the executive committee of the Council on Competitiveness, the board of directors for NetCom Solutions International, Ltd. (UK), and chairs the governance committee for the Phelps Stokes Fund. He is on the advisory board of DECIS Technology and is former chairman of the board of LearnCity, Inc. McHenry has also served on the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, the State of Virginia Economic Development Authority and the board of directors for James Martin Government Intelligence. He has also chaired the board of directors of NeCom Solutions South Africa. McHenrys business engagements have taken him to Africa, Europe and Asia. He lives with his wife, Singleton, in suburban Virginia.

Agencys 8(a) Program helps DoverStaffing Inc. Grow its Staff to over 200 Employees
Firm has Received six 8(a) Contracts for $9.8 Million Like many entrepreneurs, Sanquinetta Dover paid some dues before she returned to Atlanta in 1996 to start DoverStaffing Inc., a professional placement and project management firm that has grown to over 200 employees. After graduating from Spelman College in Atlanta with a degree in Economics, she spent six years with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in its bank liquidation division in Chicago and Midland, Texas. She later held several corporate sales positions in Chicago and spent over two years running her first small business, a wood pallet manufacturing firm in the Windy City. Dover says she first learned about the SBAs 8(a) Business Development program in Chicago during the operation of her first small business. Her knowledge of the program would pay large dividends after DoverStaffing was certified as an 8(a) and Small Disadvantaged Business in 2003. Since it was certified, DoverStaffing has received six contracts through the 8(a) program for a total of $9.8 million. The first of these contracts came in 2006 when the company was named the

prime contractor for the U.S. Department of Agricultures Cotton Division to provide administrative staff and light industrial machine operators. Another 8(a) award calls for the company to be the prime contractor for the U.S. Army Reserves Survivor Outreach Services (SOS) program. This contract provides support and financial counselors nationwide to families of fallen soldiers. The companys latest contract was an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) award for the U.S. Department of Navys SeaPort-e program. SeaPort-e is the Navys electronic platform for acquiring support services in 22 functional areas including Engineering, financial Management and Program Management. These contracts have been very important in assisting the development of our company, says Dover. They have allowed us to gain valuable management performance that will position us to compete further in the private and public sector. There are other benefits to the 8(a) program besides having the opportunity to bid on solesource and limited competition federal contracts. The nine-year program, limited to firms owned by economically and socially disadvantaged individuals, also offers management and technical assistance as well as counseling and monitoring services by staff located in SBA district offices. When her company joined the 8(a) program, its employment level was about 75 people, according to Dover, a native of Greenwood, S.C. Besides its headquarters staff, the company now has employees based nationwide to handle additional contracts that include work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Looking to its graduation from 8(a) in 2012, Dover says her company is continually marketing its business to help sustain growth past its current portfolio of contracts. Its marketing efforts recently paid off when DoverStaffing was one of one of six firms that were awarded contracts by the State of Georgias Department of Administrative Services to provide 1,000 temporary jobs to state agencies with federal stimulus funds. To help with its development, Dover moved the companys main office this year to a HUBZone located on Cleveland Avenue in Fulton County. The HUBZone program establishes preferences for federal contracts to small businesses located in historically underutilized business zones. Dover says the positive influence of her parents, both educators, helped her reach many of her career goals. Her father earned a PhD degree before he became superintendent of schools in Greenwood County, S.C. Managing money and living within my means are lessons are learned from my father, she said. DoverStaffing received the Atlanta Business Leagues Success Against the Odds Award in 2005 and the Regional Directors Award from the U.S. Department of Commerces Minority Business Development Agency in 2006.

SBA Success Story

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SBA Seattle District Office

SBA 8 (a) program offers Sustainable Floors mentorship, business assistance

Dana Pittman would tell any firm looking to enter into the U.S. Small Business Administrations 8 (a) Business Development Program that its not about the number of sole-source federal government contracts the company can obtain, its the relationships that will develop and the high-level training that marks the programs many benefits. The 8(a) Business Development Program is an important resource for small businesses seeking business-development assistance. Named for Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act, this program was created to help small and disadvantaged businesses compete in the

marketplace. It also helps these companies gain access to federal and private procurement markets. The 8 (a) program allows businesses many opportunities, including mentoring, counseling, training, financial assistance and surety bonding. Businesses can stay in the 8 (a) program for up to nine years. The 8(a) program offers a broad scope of assistance to firms that are owned and controlled at least 51 percent by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. Pittman is an AfricanAmerican female Veteran who is the controlling shareholder for her commercial flooring firm Sustainable Floors (doing business as Sustainable Interiors) located in Fife, Washington. The company furnishes and installs all types of flooring, and has expanded its services to include installation of interior fixtures and furniture. The key component to the business, though, Pittman said, is that her company only uses materials that are environmentally safe and incorporates a sustainability culture into her company. Ten percent of the companys profits are donated to local and foreign non-profits. Holistic sustainability is meeting basic environmental, economic and social needs now and in the future without undermining the natural systems upon which life depends, according to the companys website. The sustainable message seems to be resonating with federal, state and local governments and private sector businesses that contract with Pittman. From starting out of her Lakewood, Washington home with fellow owner Colin Higginbottom seven years ago, Sustainable Floors generates more than $7 million in revenues each year, and has hired 27 employees. Including sub-contractors, she may have up to 100 individuals employed. She has had contracted several jobs at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, remodeling one of the bases movie theaters, Madigan Healthcare System and several barracks. Pittman said she has a mantra that she lives by in the business world: When it comes to getting contracts, your previous work is important, but it is also about who you know. Its not about getting the contract, but about getting to know that contract officer or the people involved in the decision-making process, Pittman said. Relationships are way more important than the deal; if you show passion in what you are doing, the deals will come. Providing business advice like this is one of Pittmans newfound passions. After 15 years in the Army, six years in health care, and approaching eight years as a small business owner, she is devoting more time to counseling and mentoring others. She is on the Board of Directors for an entrepreneurship non-profit that teaches constructionbased small business owners about the many different aspects to running a small business. She said one of the biggest downfalls to small businesses trying to get government or private business contracts is not catering your sales pitch to that agency or company. If you havent taken two seconds to figure out what (you are trying to contract for), you arent interested in the relationship, but the bottom dollar, and thats not going to get you very far anymore, Pittman

said. One relationship Pittman bends over backwards to maintain is with the SBA Seattle District Offices 8 (a) Program staff. Business Opportunity Specialist Linda Laws provides oversight, training and any other assistance Sustainable Floors needs while it is in the 8 (a) Program. The Seattle District Office currently manages about 100 8 (a) clients. I can tell the 8 (a) clients who love what they do, and that defines Dana Pittman perfectly, Laws said. We love to see her passion, her perseverance, and have really enjoyed watching her grow and excel.

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Minority Owned Business Article 7: A Business Success Story

Donna Reddout, the founder of Eagle Systems and Services, Inc. in Lawton, Okla., faced a crucial turning point for her company in the early 90s, about five years into the life cycle of the business she started in 1986. Eagle Systems provides logistics, training, information technology and program support services primarily to government agencies. But trouble hit in the early 90s when, as Reddout explains it, the federal government began cutting out or bundling small contracts into larger ones. That basically eliminated the types of contracts that make up the bulk of our business, she says. I had to decide right then whether to just give up and close the business, or try to find some way to stay in the federal procurement game. That some way turned out to be the Small Business Administrations 8(a) Small Business Development Program. But in order to qualify, Reddout had to sell a majority ownership stake in her company (51 percent) to someone who would qualify as a disadvantaged business owner. Fortunately, the perfect person was available for the job: Rhonda Clemmer, a Native American who had been working with her for two years as a training developer. I wouldnt have gone out and sold controlling interest in my company to just anyone, says Reddout. Rhonda is extremely sharp

and capable, and we have complementary capabilities and are able to work together well. That is the move that really put us on the road to success. With a big boost from its status as an 8(a) and Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) company, Eagle Systems has soared over the past decade, growing to 270 employees and about $14 million in annual revenue. The company graduated from the nine-year (8a) Program last June. We still have a lot of 8(a) contracts that will run another three to five years, so were in pretty good shape, says Reddout. And Im seeing more small business federal government contracts now than Ive ever seen before. Reddouts advice to other businesses that are considering applying for 8(a) status? In short: Be persistent. Just reading through the rules and regulations may not be good enough, she says. We followed the process step by step, but our first application was denied. A consultant helped us figure out what the snags were and we made the changes that were necessary to get qualified. But it can be a cumbersome process, so you have to be persistent and determined.

Find this article at: http://entrepreneurialconnection.nase.org/Skills/Module32/seven.asp

2006 NASE All Rights Reserved.

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KIHOMAC recognized by SBA DC Office as most successful 8(a) Firm in Transition

19 March 2010 ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (March 19, 2010) The Small Business Administration has recognized KIHOMAC as the Metropolitan Washington District of Columbia area most successful 8(a) firm in the transitional stage. KIHOMACs CEO, Mr Ki Ho Kang, has been chosen to present his firms success story at a National Press Club Webinar broadcast on June 2nd, 2010.

This recognition is part of the Small Business Administrations Smart Business Development Advisor program that educates small disadvantaged businesses on how to start, grow and succeed. The purpose of the 8(a) Business Development Program is to assist small socially and economically disadvantaged business concerns in competing in the American economy. The 8(a) program is nine years long and is divided into two stages: a four-year development stage followed by a five-year transitional stage. The transitional stage is acknowledged as being the most difficult portion of the program to navigate. Transition requires the 8(a) firm to make substantial and sustained efforts to enter the competitive marketplace and achieve specified targets of non-8(a) contract revenue that accrues from other than sole source contracts. These competitive revenue targets start with 15% of total revenue in the first year of transition and end with 55% at graduation, or end of year 5. Mr. Kang focused KIHOMACs competency towards sustainment of complex aerospace systems. The company has grown steadily at an annualized grow rate of over 130%, starting in 2004 with $156K in revenue and booking $10.9M in revenue by year end 2009. Recently, the company expanded its scope of business activity by opening a 12,500 square foot Prototype Engineering and Fabrication center to address aerospace customers manufacturing needs that require high engineering content and specialty manufacturing. The Small Business Administration Webinar series is marketed to every firm in the 8(a) program and to 7j eligible (socially and economically disadvantaged firms) through organizations that include national and local Chambers of Commerce, economic development departments and industry associations.