Enterprising Veteran Award

Valador was the contract partner on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. By itself, this singular achievement would have earned Mr. Mabie an Enterprising Veteran's award. What you may not know is that Valador is also a contract partner to VA's Center for Veterans Enterprise. Their staff worked with VA personnel, and focus groups of owners and advocates to create the VetBiz Vendor Information Pages. This database was recognized by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in April 2003 as the premier source for locating veterans and service-disabled veterans in businesses that are at least 51% owned and controlled by such individuals.

Additionally, Valador has worked with VA to design the new Assistance Program Pages. This database is designed to be a one-stop shopping vehicle for potential entrepreneurs and for established business owners who are looking for information about management, technical, financial or procurement assistance. This database is one of the requirements of Public Law 106-50, the foundation legislation that created Federal opportunities for veterans in business.

Together, VIP and APP serves the needs of both today's business owners and tomorrow's entrepreneurs as we expand awareness of the Federal Veterans Entrepreneurship program.

Mr. Hawkins is a disabled veteran who lives the phrase "Veterans in Business - Still Serving America." He opened his business in May 2002. Since that time, he has developed a loyal following for his principal product, Summertime Salsa.

His salsa is in Wal-Mart stores. He's sold more than 3,500 cases since January 2003. Recently, he completed negotiations with the Fresh Market, a regional gourmet grocery chain in the Southeast. They have the salsa in 41 stores covering an 8-state area. The all-natural, low-fat, sugar-free product fits well in Fresh Market's consumer strategy.

What makes this company different than the many other firms that manufacture salsa? Gerald Hawkins uses labor from HUB Zones in East Tennessee to produce his salsa. Each 100 cases of salsa creates one day of work for 4 people. Last July, G & H Foods won the first place prize for Outstanding New Product from Southern Appalachian. The award was conferred by the Smithsonian Institution's Folklife Festival.

Even though this struggling small business is operating on a very tight profit margin, Mr. Hawkins is donating salsa to our troops in Iraq as a gesture that America's citizens are supporting them. After the first shipment of 16 jars arrived in Baghdad, the immediate response was "Send more salsa! That is the greatest salsa we've ever eaten!"

The story was picked up in the local press. It led to an article in Cooking Light magazine which generated web site sales from all over the nation. With his commercial business opportunities looking up, Mr. Hawkins still supports our troops. He is currently negotiating with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service to place the salsa in base exchanges so that returning troops can easily find the salsa that sustained them overseas.

Federal Champions

In Fiscal Year 2003, the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Port Hueneme, CA awarded 4.6% of its total procurement dollars to veteran-owned small businesses. That's more than $10 Million! Service-disabled, veteran-owned small business firms received 3.28% of the dollars. The Port Hueneme Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center is the only major Navy contracting activity to exceed the legislated service-disabled veterans' performance goal in FY 2003. The results reflect a high degree of focus, business acumen and savvy by activity command and acquisition personnel to be able to achieve the excellent performance noted for the year.

Port Hueneme provides Engineering Support for shipboard combat and weapons systems. Their principal mission is to support and assist the fleet by ensuring that warfare systems enable ships and sailors who sail in harm's way to fight and win. Their achievement culminates a multi-year outreach and planning effort and shows that the 3% goal is not only achievable, it is exceedable!

In our inaugural Champions of Veterans Enterprise program in 2002, we honored the U. S. Air Force Small Business Outreach Office and the Director of its Small Business Program. It is a privilege to report that four Air Force Bases exceeded the Service-Disabled Veteran-owned Small Business performance goal in Fiscal Year 2003. These achievements tie directly to the sustained commitment and leadership exhibited by U.S. Air Force civilian and military personnel.

Keesler AFB achieved 3.3% of their total procurement dollars. Sheppard AFB in Texas achieved 3.6%. Columbus AFB in MS accomplished 3.98% and Little Rock AFB achieved 5.24%. Collectively, these four bases spent $10 Million dollars with businesses owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans!

These four bases are the only Air Force components to exceed the performance goal.

Following the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia Orbiter, NASA activated the Columbia Accident Investigation Board to investigate the circumstances of the accident, establish the facts and recommend actions to preclude recurrence of similar problems in the future.

NASA's contracting team took the bold step of awarding the public interface requirement to Valador, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business established in 2001. This award exceeded $14 million. Valador provided technical experts in hypersonic aerothermodynamics, Space Shuttle systems, Space Shuttle history, space policy, orbital dynamics, micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD), sensor reconstruction and analysis, modeling and simulation, trajectory visualization, ceramics analysis, materials analysis, material and structural forensics, and corrosion.

Valador managed all public inputs, established the Congressional liaison office, produced all public meetings and press conferences, and provided technical writing and graphic arts support including the publication of the final CAIB report. Together, the Board and Valador brought up a toll-free phone line and a web site to keep the Nation informed of the progress of the investigation. The site had more than 16 million hits and 300,000 visitors in its first 30 days. This project included web casts of public meetings and press conferences, transcripts, pictures, briefings and streaming video. The site included database management, action item tracking and dissemination of data for the investigators. More than 3900 public inputs and 2000 subscribers supported in the investigation through the web site.

For their outstanding performance, Valador received a NASA Group Achievement Award for its outstanding performance from NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe and Columbia Accident Investigation Board Chairman Admiral Hal Gehman. Five Valador personnel also received NASA Distinguished Service awards for their individual contributions.

Support Sector Champions

The Center for Veterans Enterprise is pleased and proud to have a national partnership in support of veterans with the network of Procurement and Technical Assistance Centers across the country. Often referred to as the best kept assistance secret for small businesses, PTACs are without a shadow of a doubt, VetBiz advocates.

It's hard to single out special support from among the community of PTAC professionals, but in 2003 a case arose that was indeed special for a service-disabled veteran-owned small business called American Preparedness.

Tom Westerlund's technical guidance helped advance a new product availability for the government and a GSA Schedule contract award for American Preparedness. His flawless efforts on behalf of a "band of brothers" helped set a national stage for advancing American Preparedness brand Emergency Preparedness Kits for nation-wide government consumption.

His timely work also played an important developmental role for the company in commercial terms. Within a period of just a few weeks from finalizing their first- phase five year program with GSA, American Preparedness was also awarded a national commercial contract for the production of Emergency Preparedness Kits as one of the premiere public providers in support of the massive "America Ready" and "America Prepared" campaigns set to launch this Fall. This is why Tom Westerlund is this year's Support Sector Award Recipient.

Vendor Information Pages

To promote the enrollment of businesses in VA's newly established VetBiz Vendor Information Pages (VIP), all facilities were challenged to locate veteran-owned small businesses and create provisional pages for them. The campaign ran from February through May.

We are pleased to announce the facility that created the greatest number of new entries into VetBiz VIP is: VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System.   Representing the employees of the VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System was the Director of the facility, Julie Catellier.   Together, these employees completed 5,485 new vendor pages!

One component of the VetBiz VIP enrollment campaign offered recognition to individual employees whose energy and initiative greatly contributed to the number of new pages in our database.   We're pleased to announce the winners of the Individual awards.   In addition to the trip to Washington to receive their awards, the employees also received cash awards!

• The Champions Award goes to: Teresa Blackman from the VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System who created 4,297 new pages.
• First Runner-Up: Mathew St. Thomas from the Tucson, Arizona Medical Center created 1,255 new pages.
• Second Runner-Up: Julie Alley from the VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System created 1,188 new pages.

 

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