eric coffie (00:00) · govcon giants podcast eric coffie eric coffie (00:00): episode 64, rick...

GOVCON GIANTS PODCAST ERIC COFFIE

Eric Coffie (00:00):

Episode 64,

Rick Grams II (00:01):

You just have to be out in the midst of the market. You have to go to your conferences. You'd have to go to the government, the government hallways and the small business offices within the government organizations. That's been the biggest measure of success. Nothing that I've been a part of seeing a win in the environment with, has to do with the simple status of, of being either an ANC or a Tribal 8a. Most of it has had to do with walking the halls, knowing the agency that you're targeting, knowing what their budget constraints are, and yet knowing their internal politics as well. What are they trying to answer? And what does your you know, your potential client, what kind of coverage do they need a backup? Do they need to make them look like a success?

Speaker 2 (00:51):

Welcome to the gov con giant podcast, federal contracting for people on the outside, looking at, if you are here to learn how to win a piece of the pie without getting your face smashed in, then you've tuned into the right place. Now the giant that not only walks the walk, but talks the talk, your host, Eric coffee,


Govcn Giants, family, Eric Coffie here, your host today's episode, we're going to interview Rick Grams II, Vice President and General Manager of Miami Technology Tolutions, LLC, a tribal 8a, and HUBzone company out of Reston, Virginia, Miami Technology Solutions focuses on information, technology, warehousing and logistics, construction, and training, and more. In fact, they were awarded a GSA GWAC, the most coveted of all Stars II contract in 2017. And today's interview. We're going to discuss building technology tools for end users, the capability and success of the 8a model, the ability to deliver it to your client. And Rick knows a couple of things about working for tribal corporations. We're going to talk about all of that and more growing a successful firm and today's episode. I'd like to welcome our next Giant, Rick Grams II, just introduce yourself and your company.


Tell us your name and tell us your company. Sure. Rick Grams, vice president of Miami technology solutions, part of the Miami nation enterprise network and in the federal contracting arena for tribal companies and Alaska native companies for the past 20 years. Happy to talk with you, Eric, about anything that strikes your interest. Well, as you know, the majority of the people that are listening to us out here are small businesses as Miami technology solutions. Are you guys considered a small business? We are, we're an 8a SBA certified 8a company, also HUBzone company. And we're we're also tribally certified through the 8a program, which, you know, tribal 8a's and Alaska native corporation, 8a, they're a little bit different than your standard proprietorship payday companies, as far as the regulatory aspects go. Okay.

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Now you said tribal 8a what's the difference between a tribal versus Alaska native?


There is no difference. It's simply a matter of the ownership. The tribes out of Alaska are part of the, you know, part of 13 regional corporations. So they're considered the Alaska native corporation model. Okay. The tribal model is, is a very similar model, same structure, same organization, same regulatory aspects. And


How did you start working with the tribal? And I don't want to say this wrong, but I guess the tribal and the Alaska natives, how did you start working with that? Those groups?


I actually started in Alaska right around 2000. I landed a job with a corporation as the chief technology officer, after my Naval career spent a decade there working on those, in that type of environment. And then I moved over to Virginia here. It started you know, started sorta progressing along the same career, became a program manager of a, of a larger it contract for one of the agencies and has it's just been building ever since. So, you know, thanks to the wonderful world of networking and conferences and meeting people that you didn't know before. Over the course of my career, I've been invited to, to work here and there and I've it's always been in some sort of Alaska native or tribal environment. So I've, I've pursued that, you know, it's been very satisfying. So you have,


We've never worked outside of that, that environment. I know that she spent some time in the military,


Just in my, in my Navy days. I've worked outside of it, but not not since being in the federal contracting market. I have not. Nope. Okay.


Okay. Okay. Okay. and you know, it's interesting. I actually, I've worked for some agencies in my past as a small business and on my show and a lot of it's my small business. I really enjoy working with agencies, I think,


You know,


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Okay. Compared to the larger corporations, I found that they've treated small businesses, extremely fair.


Considering, you know, like the big, you know, fortune 100 companies out there, that's been my experiences with them. You can talk to the people, you can talk to the bosses, you could talk to the staff just like you would any other small business. What is it like


From an ANC? How do you guys perceive small business?


I'm not, let me try to touch on that a little bit. So in, in every company I've worked in for the past 20 years, there's been some sort of element where we've been requested to be part of a large companies teaming arrangement. And that's a, that that gives them a slight advantage, right? Depending on what the opportunity is. And there's, there's reasons behind that. They're all, you know, most of them are regulatory, but many of them are also small businesses such as tribal, tribal certified companies. And Nancy's have the ability to recruit specific talent within their midst for a number of years that the big companies might just like us because they didn't make it through the, you know, the ATS ringer or the, you know, some sort of screening interview process, whatever the case may be. The small business side does seem to be a little bit more personalized and yet still very professional at the same time. I would agree.


Have you noticed any differences between the, the corporations that you've worked at in the past? Well, there's always some sort of


Differences, right? I mean, they're, they're mostly organizational and you know, leads to the vision of the organization, but nothing, nothing that's paramount as far as the, the capability of success of the, of the 8a model and the, the ability to deliver to the client, which is the important part delivering to that end client on the government side. The reason why I asked the question is so many


Of the, the non tribal and the non Alaska native 8a they express their difficulty in the programs. And what I'm looking for is, is kind of is there a model that works? Is there something that they can that, that they, that you could share that could maybe help them have even a little bit more success than they're having in the past? Something that you've seen that works when you've, you know, you've been at four different companies that are successful, is there any patterns that they could maybe follow that would help them lead

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To future success? You just have to be out in the midst of the market. You don't have to go to your conferences. You have to go to the government the government hallways and the small business offices within the government organizations. That's been the, the biggest measure of success. Not nothing that I've been a part of seeing a win in the environment with has had to do with the simple status of, of being either an AMC or a tribal aid. Most of it has had to do with walking the halls, knowing the agency that you're targeting, knowing what their budget constraints are, and yet knowing their internal politics as well. What are they trying to answer? And what does your you know, your potential client? What, what kind of cover do they need a backup? Do they need to make them look like a success? And even further along that path you know, you look for those, those government people that are going to be a sort of pseudo cheerleader for you. Once you get in their midst and are taking care of their business, you want to make them look good. Of course. And, but you're also looking for that personality though, in the government environment, that's also going to reciprocate that effort. I think that that was, that was really spot on,


You know, I, like I said, I I've seen the, and again from the outside, and I've been a lot of military installations and I, and again, my industry is construction. So I primarily work with


That were construction firms. And so I've, you know, I've seen the organizational structures, but


Then at the other side, I've heard a lot of the complaints from some of the other small business 8a firms going back to conferences how do you think that your model is going to change moving forward


Post COVID? No, no, no. That's a good question. I, it's funny, you mentioned that I was talking with a coworker, not a coworker, but a, a teammate of mine the other day. And we were talking about some of the challenges we're experiencing with the virtual conference model that the government has continues to do right now during the COBIT environment where they're doing virtual conferences instead of the impersonal ones. Right. And then the main difference is when you're at an in person conference, you can look around the conference and get a, feel, a visual observation of who's paying attention to the government's pitch, what it is they're trying to accomplish. You can see who's walking by the government stakeholders, you know, maybe waving their hand or shaking their hand, or having a little bit longer conversation than normal. And then you can also, you know, when you're in the physical environment, you can see kind of, who's leaning up against the wall, just there to, you know, to, to be spending some time, maybe get out of the office, not too interested, you know?


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So, so you're on the virtual side, you don't get to see all of that. You get to see a whole bunch of participants in the list on the screen, but you don't really know who's sitting back there in their office or their home office on the virtual side, taken meticulous notes, you know, maybe having some chats on the side, those things you don't get to see. So, so there's a bit of a challenge in trying to understand, not just the client, but how is the market, the other market players, whether they be your community partners or your competition, how are they perceiving the client and what is their interest towards the client? So there's, there's some dynamics there that we haven't really properly 8apted to yet. I would say overall within the same market, that's probably the most


I'd say explicit trends, like translation is not the right word, but probably the best type of description I've heard of someone at like what you people do at a conference, right. When you're observing all of these different


Moving parts and factors and people. That's very interesting.


Yeah. So you've attended some virtual conferences recently.


Yeah, I have. And they've been, you know, they've been informative and useful. I'm not knocking them. They're just again, you can't look around and see who's doing what, so your, your focus remains on the client and, and after the call, you regroup with your team and the company and say, or your team and teaming partners and, you know, go assess your notes. And what what, what value you think you can possibly pitch the client for the next step? Yeah,


I have yet to attend a virtual conference thus far this year. Have you found that the spending has been up or down during this timeframe with COVID for you guys? Has it, has it changed any?


I have not seen much of a change in my arena. However, I have seen things that I was, that I had identified shift to the right by a couple of months. But they were not specific specific opportunities. Anyway, there were, there were big, large scale opportunities.


Okay. So you don't you haven't seen essentially that because of Kobe, right.


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Postpone any particular projects or they've,


You know, they've continued doing business as normal


In my arena. It's been a steady, steady line of business. I haven't had any impacts that are, are negative.


Okay. is my Miami for, did the company, do you know where the name comes from Miami technologist?


Miami technology solutions it's is so we're owned by the myelination out of Miami, Oklahoma. Now, you know, you being a Florida will connect Miami to Florida, but there's a, you know, I'm not gonna offend anybody by trying to say the name correctly, but the, the actual name is Nya, M M a the tribal name for Miami nation. And you know, if you wanted to look at that and you simply go to emanate MN, dashi.com and it'll, it'll clarify all the details. It's M Y a M I a


Interesting. So if I look that up, I'll find information about the original name of Miami, where it comes from. Yes, absolutely. Okay. And we're familiar by the way, people in Miami are familiar, Miami, Oklahoma.


I'm not, actually, I'm not surprised I get that right.


I think about it. I mean, we're from Miami, so, you know, we're we're, we're familiar with it.


Yeah.


It will be thrown off by that, that comment. There's also another Miami cause there's another Miami football team out there, so Oh, okay. There you go. Right. Yeah. So we're coming. Right. But so now we're talking back your business, is it related?


Oh, yes, it is currently. It's a it logistics and a nationwide training program.

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You on any of the best in class vehicles,


We have had the luxury of being in a joint venture where we are part of the stars,II 8aprogram. And that has been a huge success for the joint venture.


Okay. Anything else?


Just a standard GSA professional services contract, but nothing, nothing else at the moment. Okay. Okay. So do you find that the majority of your work is


Relate to any of that, those particular,


Oh, no. The majority of work that we pursued and that we continue to build on are all fall within the same scope of a scope of areas, you know, logistics and information technology. They have a nice touch point down the road of artificial intelligence here later this year. So I'm very excited about that. And then the the training aspect that's you know, that connects very well to the tribe because it's a training program that we do for the, you know, th that connects all the tribes into the federal system. So of applying for grants and grant management. So there's no, the work that we're doing is very good and very very we're we're on the tipping point of being right there at the frontline of cutting edge. We have a few more about another 18 months to go in our strategy.


And in Miami technology solutions will be front and center of some new information coming out in the market. Wow. Wow. No, I heard you said AI that's, that's wonderful. Well, that makes sense. And, you know, it connects into the logistics arena and information technology, being an enabler of everything and business you know, there's data points and logistics that are also informational and helpful to absolutely exploit for the betterment of operations and the logistics environment. Have you worked on any of the CSOs, any of the broad agency announcement, any of OTAs, anything like that? No, we haven't explored those areas. Okay. Yeah. We're familiar with them. We just we've been maxed out on our resources doing the work that we're doing. Wow.


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Wow. Congratulations. Yeah, no, I that area seems to be growing every year and I was just wondering I haven't spoke to anyone who's, who's actually, you know, benefiting from it, even though I see it.


Number is steadily rising, increasing too. So you're


Of the the Miami, the Oklahoma tribe. How many, how many other companies are there, do you guys have in that particular tribe


In that region, there are six companies in the division called the federal contracting group. And then there are about 10 other companies that are commercially focused around the country. He used to work at a native group federal. Yep. Did you ever work with Chris Lee? Chris Lee, mr. Lee. I know him very well.


Okay. No, I met him at a hub zone conference


Two years ago. Yeah. It is a genuine guy. That's working with him. Yeah.


Nah, Chris is a good guy. I met him at a conference and we stayed in contact it's of course, when you look at people on LinkedIn, right. They help you make the connections. So


He he, when when him and I were working together, we actually had to take a trip to Japan to kick off a contract that the company had won wow. With the U S army over there at the base. And we had we had a wonderful time getting to know each other and moving forward,


I had no idea that you did work. Oh, CONUS work.


Yes. Wow.


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How does that, how does that work out? I've never, that's fascinating. I've never heard that before from anyone.


So standard protocols of project planning and, you know, 8apting with the client's needs. I am not sure how that, how to answer that.


Okay. From a person who let's let me let I'll go back. Let's say I've had people. And, and even myself, when I first started in the federal arena, I didn't know how to do work outside of my local area right outside of Miami. And then I figured out how to get past Miami, but then I said, how do I


Work outside of the state of Florida? Okay.


And then I figured that out. And so now, you know, I've worked across the Southeast United States and then up in the Northeast, but then I think there's another element when you take something overseas and you're working in a totally, like, I wouldn't even know how to estimate something of that nature.


Well, there's, you know, each opportunity is different, right. But then it involves a lot of conversations and a lot of research and you know, a little bit of assistance on the, on the admin side for, for mapping out travel possibilities and the cost of those travel costs abilities. But it really does not seem to me like it's that much different than if we were to pursue something. You know, if I'm living in Virginia and I pursue something, you know, down in Texas you know, how how's that going to be managed? And what's the you know, what's the corporate presence going to look like and how frequently, et cetera, et cetera, to me, it's just standard mapping out a plan and, you know, trying to make the best of it


When you were in the Navy, did, where did you live at where are the places or countries that you spend time in? Oh, too many.


It can pick anywhere in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean and the North Atlantic. And that was the, that was the, that was a 10 year spectrum right there.


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Do you think that that's possibly why you feel comfortable doing work overseas? You know, that's a good point too.


It just strikes me as odd. So it may, it just may be if it was something that needed to happen. And it's really more about, you know, the mission of the organization and how it's structured and what the, what the goal and vision of that organization is. Right. You know, for all of these agencies and tribal 8a they're their number one job purpose is to send profits back to the tribe. So everything done should be at a level that is profitable and keeping that in mind yet, you know, you streamline everything else, operate as lean as possible and move forward with with a good plan in hand. And if, you know, sometimes you have to get dynamic and be creative. That's, that's fine. That's what we all get paid to do.


Right, right. Right. Anything that over your, I don't know, you know, the last 20 years and the companies, do you look back and look at a particular opportunity that maybe you passed up on that turned out to be something really big that maybe I wouldn't say regret, but then you, you wish you had it maybe


Pursue it? No, not, not particularly. There was a but along those lines, there was a contract that is often funded in my mind where I worked with another company called called jet out of Annapolis, Maryland, and, you know, collectively, we did some excellent work for the defense travel management office you know, rebuilding their databases and software. And they, they were the instrumental tool and putting forth the the, the federal government's travel website, which everybody was supposed to be using. And it was it was, it was a great team of, you know, 18 professionals making a lot happen in an environment where things had not happened so successfully before. So


Speaking of that, you said 18 professionals. How do you, how do you guys feel


True? Well, just standard tools, you know, indeed ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn you know, we, we, there's been some companies where we've had, you know, we've done one of those shows called those recruiting fairs. Okay. Roadshow. Yeah. I didn't find those two, two successful people. You know, I found it easier to have people submit their resume and distribute it real quick and find some connection points and then have an initial conversation and try to try to go from there. Okay.


So you, then that particular Annapolis, Maryland with the IHS contract, you had 18 people on there, but what was it? You just, you, what was it that was, I guess, and I know you're doing good work, but what is it that you think about?

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Oh, it's, you know, it's, it's one of those standard success stories where the professionalism was one of a can do you know? Well, you know, it's not only going to be, we're going to make this work, but we're going to make this work and we're going to make sure that the client is satisfied with it. So the, you know, we, we were all happy with the technology, but of course, technology, when you're a technologist technology makes a lot of sense when you're, you know, building technology tools for end users and people that are not technologists, but they're simply going to be inputting data or exporting data for their own reporting purposes, making that group of people happy. Those stakeholders is absolutely critical. So we made that a number one task instead of, you know, making the technology successful. We made the task to make the employees in the environment successful, which was a new mindset from a technology perspective in the small business world, going, speaking of tools, what are some of the tools that you've used over the past decade?


That's right. In terms of maybe capture management, research, proposal management, are there any specific tools that you guys have used or is it different for each company? Most companies have stuck with the go win environment. You know, when it's from Deltek and, and before you know, I I've, I've tried a couple of the, the alternative ones such as go tribe. I really liked Bloomberg. That's a wonderful tool for, especially for the resource side. And, and I say that because I always see Bloomberg at the conferences, and I think that's an important stuff, but you know, as far as any other tools, they've always, we've always incorporated the data, you know, we've exported it out of those systems and imported it into some sort of Microsoft format to work with an office three 65 and share amongst ourselves. Okay.


What do you think about beta Sam? And again, you know, the question, because you said sometimes people build technology, right. Without thinking about the users of mine. I have often been curious to go, try to find that the statement of work or PWS at that, that system was built upon. Thank you, Rick. That'd be great. If someone could do that, I was told IBM built it or some, I don't know, but it's working, it's, it's, it's a good step forward. And you know, you have to take some time to understand the logic of how it's put together in order to maximize its use, but it's, it is a good step forward compared to the hunt and pecking of the FPO system. I was I was talking to one of the founders of gov tribe recently, and he said that beta Sam has been the biggest windfall for them. So I can tell you, I can, I can believe that. Right. So I can tell you this beta Sam thing is it's, it's, it's been a spend it interesting to watch its evolution. It arrived. So


Do you use FPDS at all? Okay. Okay.


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Wonderful tool. And it's very useful. A combination of FPDS there's one other than a small business dynamic search.


Yup. Okay. Yup. Dsps. Right. Okay. Okay. Good stuff. What what, thanks. Prepare, what do you think prepared you to be CTO leaving the Navy and then moving to that type of role?


Exactly. Yeah. I had some wonderful tech support opportunities when I was in the Navy. And the, you know, the service aspect of the Navy, what was different about working for you know, a tribal corporation instead of working for the Navy was, was the results were actually local instead of, you know, serving, you know, certain you're in the military, you're serving the country, right. You're doing something for the betterment of the country, you know, to defend the country. You know, it was when I went to work for the, for my very first tribe, I found a lot of satisfaction in delivering results that were local or the community benefited from it. And it's just been a cascading satisfaction level ever since.


What, what do you do? What type of habit or routine that you do that you think helps lead to?


Well, I honestly think it's, it's, it's personal. I mean, business is business, but, you know, we're all, you know, the full back on an old cliche, it's, it's, you have to, it's always about the people, nothing in business happens, happens without people understanding each other's capabilities and needs and goals and, and you know, trying to fit within that match match alongside that the, the other, the other cliche is that, you know, business would be great if it wasn't for all the people involved. Right. But I agree, but the but it, it, it truly seems to be about, you know, the, the success comes from the working with other people. And that includes people that are, you know, in your employee base, you know, taking care of the client means taking care of employees when the employees are in the client's environment. And the client sees you taking care of your employees, that they also see as their employees, it's a win, win for everybody. And that, that that speaks volumes to, you know, to the purpose of what's happening, why we're all doing this.


That makes sense. But going back, what do you, is there anything that you do exercise meditation,


Cold showers.


That's good. What about Rick here

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Break do when he's facing a challenging situation.


So let me tell you, I had a friend of mine.


He used to run a mile backwards. Believe it or not.


He says it helped clear his mind. No, I can't do that, Rick. And I would not say for you to start trying, right. But I know people that run up Hills I personally wake up in the morning and I usually do a four,


The five mile walk. And that just sets the tone


Similar to, did you hear the I think it's Al Al how Robin says, if you make up your bed every day, like, you've, you know, it's one of those guys said, it's like the first thing towards having a day of success.


Yep. There was a Navy Admiral that said that a lot too. That's correct. Right, right. So I was just wondering, what does, what does Rick do? Well, Rick used to exercise a lot and Rick needs to get back into that, but I've, since those days I've 8apted to meditation quite a bit, especially in the morning hours too, to kind of prepare for the day. Okay. No, no, it's not too complicated. It's nothing magical. It's taking care of oneself. Who's important to any specific type of meditation practice, not a specific type. A it's generally sitting in a room with some low key chill music, you know, not modern day music, but instrumental music playing in the background and just 15 to 20 minutes every morning before coffee is, is very helpful to keep balance. I believe for me,


No, I think that's important because again, what it's like what we said, right. Let's get to know the person.


Yeah.


A lot of people think about business from like principles and tactics and habits, but what about

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Of the actual person? Cause we're all people at the end of the day,


And I think it's beneficial to know, okay. That, Hey, you know, this person, this is the way that they handle stressful situations. This is way another one has such, I personally never been able to meditate. I don't know how to meditate, Rick. I think the silence is what kills me.


That's, that's part of the lesson. That's part of the lesson. Right.


Right. Makes sense. Makes sense. Do you, what types of activities do you guys do for team building over at Miami technology?


Well, it's funny you say that. So team building, we used to do golfing just for the fun of it, but, but lately, because of COVID-19, so we've shifted our operations in the office, obviously the so now we have, what are those things called? We have cornhole boards in the office now. Okay. We rotate through the office. You know, we have, our office is only a one third staff at any given day, but for the people that are in the office, those boards are there and we'll take 15 minute breaks, you know, a couple of times a week and just sit there and throw, you know, play that little game. And it's amazing. I'm just getting up out of the desk, doing something non-professional non, you know, no goal set, no, no sitting there reading a proposal or critiquing anything, just displaying cornhole, you know, 15 minutes, total refreshment, everybody's smiling at the end, you know, get back to work and do your thing. It's good.


No, I, I liked that. I, why do you think more people? I mean, where did you learn that from? Where did you guys get the idea?


That's something that I inherited from a previous organization where we didn't get to do it as much, but it was intended to do so. And again, the business, you know, the success of business kind of took over the, the day, the hours of the day. So it's, you know, learning things from the past, I've kind of kept that kept in mindful presence about taking that break. I mean, 15 minutes, you know, if you can't take 15 minutes out of your day, you're not, you're not, you're not controlling it well enough. You're not managing yourself well enough


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Fair. No, I agree. Absolutely. I agree. No, I so third of the staff is working right now. How is, how is Virginia making out?


We've been very fortunate in Virginia, very lucky that it didn't feel that way in the beginning, because all around the beltway, everything seemed to explode about, I guess, would, you know, we had like a three week lag time after New York which wasn't surprising. I mean, we're right in the center between, you know, the, the runs of commerce between, you know, New York and down all the way down through Atlanta, then down there to Florida in your life, your areas, right? So the but as you know, everybody wore the only follow up procedures they wore the mass, the supermarkets limited people who, you know, the amounts of people that could be in at any one time. The, you know, the DC region, the Metro DC area here Northern Virginia has been pretty successful in pushing back on it. We're now in phase three, as of July 1st.


Wow. Which allows for restaurants and bars to be open. And you can have gatherings above to 250 people. You're at page 83 up there. Yup. Yup. But, you know, I mean, we obviously hope it doesn't fall to the wayside. Like it, you know, like it did in the in the 13 to 15 States that have, you know, where it's bounced back in the country, we hope that doesn't happen here. So there's still a lot of precautions being taken both by companies and by local governments to try to keep people protected, public transportation is up and running again, which is helpful. Wow.


That's that's incredible. Yeah. I yeah, no, that's where, I mean,


I don't have to really speak for Florida. I think the news does a good job with that. I think let's just face it, it's painful all around. I mean, when one part of the country is hurting, it's it impacts everybody. Right. It does. And probably beyond us, you know, probably we, we don't even talk about that at work, but that's probably beyond us. That's yeah. That's a very good point. Right. We, we only looking at what's happening right here immediately, but you're right. It has to, it has to spread out beyond us because we're global. So let me ask you, I see that you have been a board member on several organizations, the most recent, the technology policy advisory committee. Can you tell us about that? How did you get involved and why? Well, so I, yeah, when I was a, I like to be involved in the community, there's a, there's a lot to learn about, you know, not just business, but just people in general by, by being involved in the community.


But I like to be involved in only things I know, subject matter expertise on, and I'm not an expert in anything by any means, but at least if I'm going to read something, I can understand it that's helpful

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enough for me. So I went to a local politician here in Fairfax County and I identified that, you know, he had a board opening that I thought I could qualify for. And I was really interested in aspire to be part of that because it was prior to, it was prior to the beginning of five G being released. There was a lot of talk and exploration about five G and the concepts. But it had not been deployed yet into this area, the markets. Okay. But, but there's, there's magnificent opportunity for that technology to, to make a big change in society. You know, Stino thinking separately from the government.


I mean, just thinking about trails you know, which there's a lot of in Northern Virginia, Virginia builds their communities to, with, with trails in mind. Okay. And, you know, with five G you can actually have the capability of security cameras for safety reasons. On many of the trails, what, I'm not, I'm not up to speed on five T. Can we, can we talk about it for a couple of minutes since you brought that up? Well, yeah, I'm not an expert on it. I'm a generalist on it, but the, the, the main feature that I like about five Jews is it, is it doesn't limit his bandwidth to just one to one radio broadcast frequency. It has multiple frequencies that it can you know, that they can make use of. And the more, the more that's open to you know, a piece of equipment, the better it is for, for the market overall for any, any devices. So a lot of it will have to do with internet of things. Right. You know, so you take any internet of thing component, and it's easy to connect it to a five G application, not too far distant down the road.


Hmm. Okay. and so being on the board prior to [inaudible], what do you, you were trying to say, w w I missed the connection there?


Yep. I was looking to influence the, the, the capabilities of 5g with, with knowledge throughout the board and in the the County government to try to make sure that we were looking at that as a way to increase safety measures and security measures, you know, throughout the County.


Did you find any pushback? No, no pushback, not necessarily a board, but I know that there was there's again, out there and it was okay.


World of


Or a new cycle. I know people were talking about, you know, some of the negative things.


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Yeah. We never took it to a, to a public a public audience for discussion and debate or anything like that. It was something that, you know, we wrote a few papers and submitted it to the governing body, the, the the Fairfax County board, and we left it there with them for discussions and went about our business, went back to our other regular business.


Okay. Okay. No have you seen any of that, those conversations about five years?


I have not seen that take place within the government sphere itself on the, at the County side that was involved in though. Okay.


All right. Is there anything that they have anything coming up relate to five G not as the moment that I'm associated with? Okay. I, I do believe I read maybe it was the CSO or OTA where they were exploring 5g options, but have you, did you and not to beat this up, but there's a really, I could draw a parallel to the story. Like the, the, the talks that people have that are like, opposed to five G D do you know anything about that?


I don't know why people would be opposed to five G other than they see some sort of cybersecurity risk to it, but every time there's a cybersecurity risk, there's, there's, it's normally because a piece of the business equation has been missed, meaning the business equation of the technology. So, you know, the, like the recent technology is always expanding and evolving is because we find weaknesses in it. We find weaknesses in it. Somebody else in the market finds a solution to that weakness. And it, it compounds off of that. So, I mean, that's the, that's the reason why, in addition to capabilities, that's why operating systems are always being, are always evolving, is because they fix the bugs and issue a new, you know, new patch, et cetera, same thing with five G and other types of technology. So I'm not familiar with anything that's going to prevent it or keep it from being deployed on a holistic basis, just like four GLTE was no.


And I agree with you. I it just reminded me of when they introduced wireless technologies and 8a Oh two 11, that people were saying that, you know, they could spy on you


And things like that nature. Right. That was true. That was very true.


I see. I was a part of that, that deployment when it came out.

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So that's why I remember it very well. And when I hear this 5G talk, I think about, wow, this, the same thing that people were saying when 802-11 came out in a very similar absolutely. Right, right,


Right, right. That's, that's what I was trying to Peerless speaking of cybersecurity. What about cm? MOC?


Yes. Talk to me, that's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Right now I understand that they're, they're going to target initially just the certain part of the market, the market, primarily the DOD with companies with, with large workforces to, you know, to start checking and implementing that requirement, making sure the companies are following that requirement. It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out because this isn't the first time that the federal government has tried to have a compliance tool for federal contractors to, you know, to manage their cyber, their own cyber security without taking over it directly. Right. Right. I mean, there's, there's some fine balances with that because, you know, we all know that as a contractor, if we're working on the federal government site using their equipment, we can't be doing company business.


We have to do that on the company's equipment when the company's equipment can generally not be used in the government environment. So going back to the corporate offices of companies or the remote offices of companies and getting, you know, managing through CMMC is going to be interesting. I, although I do think that the companies that are with you know, if they're utilizing the cloud properly with, with office three 65 or other tools, I don't know if Google cloud has a support mechanism for you, but I know office three 65 does in preparation for your CMMC, you know, it should not be that complicated to prove that people are taking care of business as they should.


I always thought there would be some kind of silver bullet that would solve the problem. And like you said, office three 65 is working at it. I'm sure of other technology leaders are also working at trying to create a very easy gateway that you go through and then you're secure.


Yeah. That's, you know, but then there's the other clouds, right? I mean, you've got the other clouds that corporations use on behalf of, you know, in serving the government's needs. And that, you know, that's where some, some, some tricks might have to be in place or some exclusions or whatever the case may be. But to me, CMMC is just another, another model. The federal government is trying to remind everybody, you know, Hey, there's a proper way to do this. And we want to make sure that your information of our information is protected so that our information is not at risk. That's really what it's, it's a big risk management tool is what it is.

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Fair enough. I've yeah, I've spoke to, so program managers that tell me the government's systems, aren't up to speed or up to par


Internally. I think with the with this latest round of everybody being forced to work remotely, I have heard, you know, through different conversations, non-official conversations that there, there are some gaps you know, both on capability side and, you know, bandwidth side for also maybe some applications haven't migrated over to the, you know, to the true 64 bit remote environment, capabilities, little things like that. So I, I do know that there and been some email delays on with some of that concept's those discussions happening? No, I and working remotely, I've had,


When you say email, Oh man. I've had a lot of my email not go through and particularly working with the Navy they don't, you know, it's not being received cause it's being blocked and


Yeah.


And you know, it really gets really


Frustrating for everyone, right. Both parties on both sides. And


Then they've created these gateways and


I forgot the latest one where they they'll send you an email that you've got to sign in and then


Upload it into some type of system,


But then, you know,


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Sends it over to them. I guess it cleaned it,


It filters, it checks it, but I don't know. I don't know the solution right now. I don't either. I would, I would hire people to help us design the solution. I can assure you that, there you go,


There you go. That's what I'm talking about. No, I like that.


And any any other resources that you've used throughout your journey books that you've enjoyed, that maybe you share with other business owners and CEOs that are starting off quotes,


Things that stuck with you, that you keep in mind. Maybe you've got a poster on the wall that you look at that reminds you


Of something positive, something encouraging you, you know, it all comes down to really just sharing determination and openness to learn something that you did not have to, you did not expect to have to learn. Right. you know, when I, when I was a CTO, I was very excited about that. I, I loved doing technology. I love putting systems together and designing architecture and, and making it all work. And then, you know, designing how the, you know, the business rules needed to take place within the configuration of all of the architecture. I did not expect to also be the one, you know, sitting down writing proposals, mapping out far regulations, you know, search and reps, those types of areas. That was not something that I expected to do. I felt very much like I was back in college, writing a master's thesis was not was not very thrilled about that, but the determination and the willpower to, to get past that in order to make the projects that I was involved in successful.


And, you know, the stakeholders that we're expecting a solution set to be working in order to have it funded properly, that was required. And it paid off that gives you a lot of growth in a lot of a lot of bigger picture concepts about how to do the same thing the next time around how you would do it differently. So determination and the willingness to grow beyond what you expect to be doing. I believe are two very important factors, right? From the get go, where, where do you get that sheer determination from? Is that well to you? I mean, it's that learned is that, you know, are you born? Nope. Nobody goes into doing what they're doing to be unsuccessful. True. Very true. Right. Very true. So yeah, you have to figure out what it's going to take to be successful as you're on the path to being successful.

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And I'm not saying that I'm the successful example. Alright. I'm just saying that for me, that's been, that's been how it's worked out for me. You know, there's not always somebody to go refer to. Sometimes you just have to find many times you have to go find your own answers, particularly when you're working for lean organizations, keeping your bottom line in check, you know, and even more so now where the future has been rocked just a little bit with the chaos of COVID. But at the same time, the market tells us that we're this chaos somewhere within that chaos as a new opportunity. Right. Absolutely. Can you, do you see anything right now, but do you think there are some things I'm working on right now that I'm not going to talk about? No, no, no. I bet you could share. I should have led with that. And the answer is yes, there are opportunities with with, you know, with Kobe impacting operations and the government side as much as they have.


Right. No, and I look, I I made a video talking about things that I, again, this was the moment that it happened. I said, Hey, there's going to be


The new emerging markets coming of this. And it's your job to look for them and find them and seek them out. I would agree. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. I'm trying to figure out if I were a, if you were a small business and you were starting out from scratch right. What are, what are some of the first things that you would do? Okay. You know, to go, let's say, build your your team from, I dunno, 10 to 20 people. What are some of the activities that you would do today? Well, all of those 10 people should be very familiar with what your vision is for, for that company. And you should task them with being a marketer for your own company and what all the capabilities your company can provide at that time. And what are willing to invest in, to provide in the near future for any client.


When, when we're small, we don't have the luxury while we may go into the market wishing to be, you know, company X, but you run across a revenue stream that would really only apply. If you were company B instead of company X, you have to be willing to convert to company B for a time period. So you can get back on the path to becoming company X because without revenue, you're not going to have company X to pursue over the long haul. Right. Right. So that's, to me, that's, that's the number one thing is keeping, getting your revenue in as quickly as possible, no matter where it's coming from so that you can take the company to become what you want it to be. Now, along the way, you might find that your company becomes three or four items of what you thought you could never be, but because you took the opportunities, it became something slightly different.


And most CEOs that I've talked to that have been around for longer than I have, have had those experiences. And they've, they've built, they've built nice companies off of those experiences. Wow.

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Wow. No, that's it's a great way to, to kind of close out any other parting words you'd like to say for everyone, I've, we're just at the approaching the, our time limit today. Okay. So no, listen, you have a wonderful podcast here. I enjoyed talking with you. I love listening to gov con podcasts. My, my commute to the office is a 35 to 40 minute commute. So I, you know, plugging the phone to the car and put on a podcast and head on up to the office. Right, right. By the time I'm getting there, instead of being frazzled by traffic, I've got my mind all in the game about government contracting. I'm ready to go. So I would appreciate just, you know, any, anybody that wants to connect, you know, look at some business opportunities jury experiences


With mr. Coffee here and how he interviewed you. I'm happy to, to be a sounding board. No, I appreciate that. So you guys are you're always looking for partnerships are open to partnerships, joint ventures or infants. That's true. Then that's, that seems to be a health way to do business because nobody's, you know, that that Island model, you have to be very big and very powerful. Right. And most of us aren't ever going to be there. That's not, that's not what we're doing. Right. Right. Well, no, listen, Rick, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show today. We appreciate our community, appreciate you and giving back and sharing it and your experiences and, you know, spending this 60 minutes or so with us today, so that someone can to learn from the things that you've done in the past, and hopefully create a path forward for the next small business contractor out there in the future.


So I want to thank you for that. It was my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for calling Giant's family. Thank you for sticking around a couple of things before we close out today, first and foremost, you know, I always tell people that I am a fan, a advocate, and a star supporter of Alaska native corporations, agencies and tribal, 8a firms. Definitely. If you have the ability or the opportunity that you really would like to work with, or partner with a tribal AA or Alaska native corporation, definitely a hundred percent unequivocally reach out to them. They are our fans, our advocates, and as a small business, also remember they're also small businesses they believe, and they support the power of the small business community, and also the network that comes with being a small business. So definitely reach out all the show notes and comments or suggestions.


Everything from today's episode will be on our website. Govcongiants.com/podcast. If you have any questions for me, comments, lesson, reach out to Maria [email protected] also stay tuned on our YouTube channel every Monday at 6:00 PM, Eastern, where you're doing YouTube live sessions, lots of good information, this upcoming show, we're going to be talking about subcontracting. We've talked about indefinite value contracts how to write proposals, a whole slew of different activities. So make sure that you have your notifications saved on YouTube. And also if you can't make YouTube or you prefer Instagram Wednesdays at 8:00 PM Eastern, you can find me on Instagram. I would love to hear from so many out there who are podcast listeners, follow us on Instagram @govcongiants. Thanks so much as always be safe, wash your hands or your sanitizer.

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