Podcast
The $50M Company That Almost Couldn’t Be Sold | Robert E. Jones
A $50 million company with 600 employees almost fell out of its own sale. Not because of revenue, but because every decision still ran through two people.
Most owners think exit planning starts when they call an M&A advisor. In this episode of GovCon Unscripted, host Chelsea Roberts talks with Robert E. Jones, CPA and Principal Advisor at Corvata, who has spent 20+ years in government contracting, and says that by then the value of the business is already fixed. The real work happens two to five years earlier, left of the transaction, where structure, discipline, and decision flow still can be changed.
In this conversation, Robert breaks down his Enterprise Readiness Operating Model, the seven decision failure modes that stall companies, why owner-dependency scares off buyers, and how tightening operations can move an EBITDA multiple from the low end of a 6 to 9x range to the high end. He also shows how tools most contractors already pay for can cut a 12-hour payroll run to two or three hours.
Timestamps:
00:00 Does anyone actually plan the exit?
01:00 “You will exit your business”: on your terms or not
02:00 Left of the transaction: where value is still changeable
03:00 The Enterprise Readiness Operating Model (structure, discipline, decision flow)
06:00 The seven decision failure modes
11:00 Due diligence: documents that “magically appear”
13:00 The $50M company that almost couldn’t be sold
20:00 Policy vs procedure vs work instructions
21:00 Getting off paper: SharePoint, Planner, and the tools you already own
25:00 Value growth: profitability, the multiplier, and the multiple
29:00 The 10-year math: working backward from the day you want out
33:00 The three kinds of optionality this work buys you
Resources:
Follow Robert E. Jones
Follow Chelsea Roberts
Other resources:
Design-Time vs. Runtime AI in Government: Why Most Agencies Get It Backwards | Doug Averill
Your AI pilot probably isn’t failing because the model is weak. It’s failing because you pointed it at the wrong end of the process.
Doug Averill has spent half his career in government and half in technology, and now serves as Vice President, Global Industry Market Leader, Government at Pega. In this episode of GovCon Unscripted, he draws a line most modernization teams never think to draw: the difference between runtime AI (burning tokens to execute the process you already run) and design-time AI (reimagining the process from the source policy before you build anything).
Apply AI at runtime to a broken workflow, Doug argues, and you pave the cow path: you carry the skipped steps, the noncompliance, and the suboptimal outcomes straight into the new system, only faster. He and Chelsea get into why the fix starts with the source policy document rather than the current application, why the power users have to be in the room from the first pilot, why procurement belongs at ideation and not at the end, and why speed, from OTAs to fast pilots, is never the same thing as the outcome you actually needed.
Timestamps:
- 00:01 — Why the US is now leading on AI uptake while process and policy slow everyone down
- 00:04 — Context is the ceiling: why the smallest gap derails an AI tool
- 00:11 — Blueprint for Government, source policy, and paving the cow path
- 00:13 — Design-time AI vs. token-maxing runtime AI
- 00:16 — Local models, warrants, and where a contracting officer should focus
- 00:24 — Dropping point solutions on the front porch of IT
- 00:25 — Getting procurement, CISO, and ISOs in the room to go idea-to-live in 90 days
Resources:
Doug Averill’s LinkedIn profile
Chelsea Roberts’ LinkedIn profile
Other resources:
You Don’t Control Innovation. You Manage It. | Harlan Bennett & Rick Fernandez
Kodak’s own engineers built the first digital camera, and its executives shelved it to protect film. The gap between having ideas and managing innovation is where organizations quietly die.
In this special episode of GovCon Unscripted, Chelsea Roberts sits down with two of the people writing the international playbook for innovation management. Rick Fernandez is President of the American Network for Innovation, chairman of the US technical advisory group to ISO TC 279, and a veteran of Florida Power & Light’s Deming Prize win, the first awarded outside Japan. Harlan Bennett is CEO of Ever Evolving, Inc., VP of the American Network for Innovation, and vice chair of the same US advisory group.
Together they take apart the most common misreads in federal innovation: that innovation equals technology, that more ideas mean more innovation, and that a standard is just another compliance flow-down. Rick contrasts idea-driven programs (14,000 employee ideas collected, roughly 100 developed, 13,900 contributors alienated) with value-driven innovation that starts from strategic intent. Harlan shows SBIR performers how to escape the one-lane trap by validating adjacent customers before the build starts. And both make the case that ISO 56001, built on the same harmonized structure as ISO 9001, is a management system, not a control system.
They also preview what’s next: innovation ecosystem management, IP-sharing contracts between primes and subs, and why innovation is no longer an individual game.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Welcome and guest introductions
01:00 Harlan Bennett: Ever Evolving, Inc. and the American Network for Innovation
02:30 Rick Fernandez: from FPL’s Deming Prize to ISO TC 279
04:00 Why innovation needs standards now: the three S’s
07:00 Innovation is not a technology: something new that creates value
09:30 The garage tinkerer problem and the one hit wonder
11:00 Managing innovation vs controlling it
12:00 Idea-driven vs value-driven innovation: the 14,000 ideas story
14:30 Innovation portfolio management
18:45 SBIR: escaping the one-lane trap
23:30 The recipe: maximize value, minimize risk, resources, and time
24:45 Ambidextrous organizations: innovating without dropping daily operations
25:30 Case study: an innovation management office, 100 projects narrowed to 3
29:00 Ecosystems: innovation is no longer an individual game
31:00 Primes, flow-downs, CMMC, and fair negotiations
37:45 Standards as enablers, not regulations
39:30 The harmonized structure: why ISO 9001 shops are halfway there
42:15 Where to find Harlan and Rick
Resources:
Harlan Bennett’s LinkedIn Profile
Rick Fernandez’s LinkedIn Profile
Chelsea Roberts’ LinkedIn Profile
Other resources:
Manufacturing Is Not a Dirty Word: Reframing the Jobs Rural Communities Need | Chrissy Marrucci
Say the word manufacturing and a lot of people picture something old and dirty. For rural communities, Chrissy Marucci argues, it is something else entirely: jobs and the federal dollars that come with them.
On this Special Episode of GovCon Unscripted, host Chelsea Roberts continues the #RoadtoHUBZone series with Chrissy Marucci, President and CEO of Elevated Consulting & Development.
Chrissy lives in an entire HUBZone county in the mountains of Appalachia and has spent years connecting rural residents to real federal contracting careers. She and Chelsea talks about what HUBZone was designed to do (bring federal spending back into the communities that need it), why the program is about the place and the people rather than the owner, how the 35% employee-residency rule actually works, and why manufacturing deserves a serious rethink as a source of rural jobs. She also lays out the community development corporation she is building to keep that money at home.
2026 National HUBZone Conference, July 21 and 22 (golf outing July 20) at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and who Chrissy is
01:00 Elevated Consulting and Council back-office support
02:00 An entire HUBZone county in Appalachia
03:00 Building the HUBZone Workforce Program
05:00 What HUBZone does for rural areas
06:00 Manufacturing and construction in rural HUBZones
09:00 Advocacy, land use, and changing the narrative
10:00 Manufacturing is not a dirty word
15:30 Place-based and employee-based: the 35% rule
18:00 Remote work and unlocking rural talent
19:00 The community development corporation
21:00 Conference mode and see you in Chantilly
Resources:
- Chrissy Marucci’s LinkedIn Profile
- Chelsea Robert’s LinkedIn Profile
- Elevated Consulting & Development’s Website
Other resources:
- Holler to Hilltop (community development)
- HUBZone Contractors National Council
- 2026 National HUBZone Conference (register)
🎧 Listen now on:
🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482
🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy
Like and follow us:
🔹 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS
🔹 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/govconunscriptedpodcast/
🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/govcon-unscripted/posts/
🔹 Join our #govcon community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14618490/
Same Work, Different Words: Why Federal Contractors Misread State and Local | Jonathan Santana
A multimillion-dollar services contract, awarded in two weeks, with every I dotted and every T crossed. It was not federal, and that is exactly the point.
This week on GovCon Unscripted, Chelsea Roberts sits down with Jonathan Santana, founder and lead consultant of Excelsior Consulting Services, LLC, an SBA HUBZone and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned small business supporting federal, state, local, nonprofit, and commercial clients. Jonathan earned his contracting warrant in the Air Force in 2003, bought through hurricane prep at Langley Air Force Base, deployed to Balad Air Base in Iraq in 2005 as a contingency contracting officer, and later worked procurement at Miami-Dade County before founding his own firm.
The conversation covers the translation problem between federal, state, and local buying (acquisition becomes procurement becomes purchasing, while the terms and conditions stay nearly one to one), how NASPO ValuePoint works as a state-level analog to a GWAC or federal supply schedule, what it means to compete with Big Four consultancies that have pivoted to state and local, creative contracting inside the FAR (performance work statements over statements of work, FAR 13.5 procedures), why state and local can award in weeks when the incentive exists, and forensic governance, Jonathan’s discipline of getting adversarial with program data before leadership bets on it.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro and Excelsior Consulting Services
00:02 The verbiage gap: federal vs state and local
00:03 NASPO ValuePoint and entering state markets through a multi-contractor alliance
00:07 Competing with the Big Four at the state and local level
00:10 A contracting warrant at Langley: hurricane prep on the clock
00:11 Deployed at Balad Air Base: contingency contracting in Iraq
00:14 SF-44s, purchase cards, and buying under pressure
00:19 Creative contracting inside the FAR: PWS vs SOW, FAR 13.5
00:23 How fast state, local, and nonprofit buying really moves
00:27 What is forensic governance?
00:31 AI, governance, and decision risk
00:35 Where to find Jonathan
Resources:
Other resources:
- Excelsior Consulting Services’ Website
- Excelsior Consulting Services’ Instagram
- Excelsior Consulting Services’ Company LinkedIn Profile
🎧 Listen now on:
🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482
🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy
Like and follow us:
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🔹 Join our #govcon community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14618490/
Substance Over Glitter: What Makes the HUBZone Conference Worth the Trip | Eric Coffie
In federal contracting, most conferences give you a polished keynote you could have read in a press release. Eric Coffie goes to a lot of them, and he keeps coming back to HUBZone for a different reason.
On this Special Episode of GovCon Unscripted, host Chelsea Roberts continues the #RoadtoHUBZone series with Eric Coffie, founder and CEO of GovCon Giants.
Eric attends a lot of federal contracting events, and his read on this one is blunt: most conferences are more glitter than substance, and HUBZone is where he actually gets the real deal. He and Chelsea talk about keeping perspective when set-aside programs come under scrutiny, why the value of a conference is in the room rather than the brochure, and the funding and scale panel he is hosting. The conversation lands on a simple message for anyone weighing the trip: come prepared, extract everything, and make the connections that carry the rest of your year.
2026 National HUBZone Conference, July 21 and 22 (golf outing July 20) at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and who Eric is
01:00 Nothing new under the sun: perspective on program challenges
03:00 Why HUBZone weathers the discourse
08:00 Substance over glitter: what makes HUBZone different
11:00 The exhibitors and primes in the room
12:00 The Building for Scale funding panel
16:00 Extract everything: prep and make the most of it
18:00 Boots on the ground, fourth quarter, and connections
18:30 Manufacturing and made in USA
19:00 See you in Chantilly
🎧 Listen now on:
🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482
🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy
Like and follow us:
🔹 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS
🔹 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/govconunscriptedpodcast/
🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/govcon-unscripted/posts/
🔹 Join our #govcon community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14618490/
Eric Coffie’s LinkedIn Profile
Chelsea Robert’s Linkedin Profile
2026 National HUBZone Conference (register)
Other resources:
The 8(a) Program Isn’t Being Killed. It’s Being Starved. | Steven Koprince
The SBA hasn’t let a single new company into the 8(a) Program in over 250 days. Federal contracts attorney and educator Steven Koprince explains what that means for the program’s future and for the small businesses waiting at the door.
Steven Koprince spent more than 20 years as a federal government contracts attorney, founding Koprince McCall Pottroff LLC before moving into education, writing, and board service.
In this conversation with Chelsea Roberts, Steven walks through the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul, the shifting culture around contracting officer discretion and bid protests, why AI-drafted GAO protests keep getting thrown out for hallucinated case law, and the slow-motion contraction of the 8(a) Program: SBA has approved only a fraction of its usual annual admissions and has not processed a new application since August 2025.
Koprince also breaks down a common and costly SAM self-certification misconception that catches contractors off guard.
Timestamps:
- 00:03:00 — Legal environment shifts and the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul
- 00:07:00 – 00:13:00 — Contracting officer discretion, bid protest strategy, and relationships with agencies
- 00:15:00 – 00:19:00 — AI-drafted protests and hallucinated case law at GAO
- 00:20:00 – 00:25:00 — The 8(a) Program’s admissions freeze and sole-source pressure
- 00:25:00 – 00:31:00 — Small business self-certification, affiliation rules, and the SAM misconception
Resource Links:
🎧 Listen now on:
🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482
🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy
Like and follow us:
🔹 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS
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🔹 Join our #govcon community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14618490/
Your Network Is Your Net Worth: Why Nobody Wins Federal Work Alone | Tim Hagerty
In federal contracting, your network is your net worth, and most small businesses are working with one far too small to win what they are capable of winning.
On this Special Episode of GovCon Unscripted, host Chelsea Roberts continues the #RoadtoHUBZone series with Tim Hagerty, founder and CEO of TeamingPro and a board member of the HUBZone Contractors National Council.
Tim started TeamingPro after a lesson every small business learns the hard way: capability is rarely what holds you back, your network is. He breaks down what actually makes a strong teaming partner (past performance with the specific buyer, not just a matching capability), why teaming wins a larger slice of a bigger contract rather than a smaller slice of the same one, and how technology can take the friction out of finding and reaching the right partners. The conversation widens into the fragility of the domestic manufacturing supply chain and the reshoring opportunity, then lands on the 2026 National HUBZone Conference, where TeamingPro is powering the matchmaking so attendees arrive already knowing who they should meet.
2026 National HUBZone Conference, July 21 and 22 (golf outing July 20) at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and who Tim is
01:00 What TeamingPro is and why he built it
02:00 The convention problem: 4,000 people, no blinking arrows
06:00 What makes a strong teaming partner
10:00 The network is the bottleneck, not capability
14:00 The bigger pie: small businesses winning together
17:00 TeamingPro’s role in the HUBZone Conference matchmaking
25:00 Manufacturing supply chain risk and reshoring
33:00 SBA momentum and opening up competition
36:00 How to reach Tim and TeamingPro
Resources:
Tim Hagerty’s LinkedIn Profile
Other resources:
HUBZone Contractors National Council
2026 National HUBZone Conference (register)
🎧 Listen now on:
🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482
🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy
Like and follow us:
🔹 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS
🔹 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/govconunscriptedpodcast/
🔹 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/govcon-unscripted/posts/
🔹 Join our #govcon community: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14618490/
The Last All-Human Workforce | Paul Serotkin
A federal workforce leader recently told a room of executives they would be the last generation to manage an all-human team. Paul Serotkin has spent 40 years watching this industry change, and he thinks that one line explains most of what is coming next.
On today’s episode of GovCon Unscripted, Paul Serotkin, CEO and founder of the Serotkin Group, joins Chelsea Roberts for a wide-ranging conversation on adapting your federal business while the ground keeps moving. Paul began his career fighting for what became the Small Business Innovation Research Act and was in the Rose Garden when it was signed in 1982. Since then he has run a mergers and acquisitions practice, founded the boutique investment bank Minuteman Ventures, operated small and socio-economic government contractors, and mentored founders through SCORE and Boston Business Mentors.
In this episode, Paul and Chelsea get into the difference between change that lasts and change that is just the pendulum swinging back, why a business plan is now a quarterly discipline rather than an annual ritual, when a subcontractor should stop being afraid to prime, how to build business development into every role in the company, and why the leaders managing teams today may be the last to manage an all-human workforce.
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome and Paul’s 40-year GovCon arc
02:00 Excitement or dread: what is really changing
03:00 Pendulum swing versus permanent change: commerciality, AI, SBIR
05:00 Contracting-officer discretion, fixed-price default, a roughly $1 trillion DoD request
08:00 Write it down: a business plan that survives the quarter
11:00 Focus versus shiny-object syndrome
13:00 The subcontracting pathway, and when to stop being afraid to prime
18:00 BD as a team sport: aligning the front office and the back office
21:00 Everyone is a salesperson
26:00 Aligning incentives with what the company wants
27:30 The last all-human workforce
30:00 The proposal that bans AI: a double-edged sword
30:30 SCORE and Boston Business Mentors: free expertise most never use
34:30 How to reach Paul
Resources:
Paul Serotkin’s LinkedIn profile
Chelsea Robert’s LinkedIn profile
Other resources:
Boston Business Mentors’ Website
🎧 Listen now on:
🔹 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/govcon-unscripted/id1766384482
🔹 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NL0kFAvmgECLTJpUZYNHy
Like and follow us:
🔹 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GovConUnscriptedUS
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Show Up or Stay Invisible: Why HUBZone Advocacy Can’t Wait in 2026 | Michelle Burnett
Most people file HUBZone under “niche set-aside.” It was designed as an economic development engine for the communities America left behind, and it is sitting at an inflection point right now.
On this Special Episode of GovCon Unscripted, host Chelsea Roberts opens the #RoadtoHUBZone series with Michelle Burnett, Vice Chair of the HUBZone Contractors National Council, ahead of the 2026 National HUBZone Conference.
Michelle has worked with the HUBZone program since she was 20. She walks through its original intent as a place-based economic development tool, the multiplier effect it was built to create, and why its biggest challenges today are problems of execution and acquisition alignment rather than flaws in the program itself. The conversation covers the 2019 regulatory overhaul and the changes the Council fought for, what aligning the program with domestic manufacturing and reshoring could unlock, and why teaming has become a survival strategy for small firms that feel like the rug is being pulled out from under them.
It closes with a direct call: show up, advocate, and be at the table. The 2026 National HUBZone Conference runs July 21 and 22 (with a golf outing July 20) at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and who Michelle is
01:00 The 2026 National HUBZone Conference and what is new this year
03:00 Who should come, and why large business turnout is so high
04:00 Where the program’s execution falls short
06:00 Advocacy, the FAR overhaul, and why your voice matters
09:00 The program is not broken, the execution is
10:00 The multiplier effect, a hand up rather than a handout
13:00 HUBZone On The Rise and the manufacturing consortium
17:00 How to get involved and where to find the conference
Resources:
Michelle Burnett’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-burnett-21737771/
Chelsea’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseadroberts/
Other resources:
HUBZone Contractors National Council: https://www.hubzonecouncil.org/
2026 National HUBZone Conference (register): https://www.hubzonecouncil.org/2026-National-HUBZone-Conference
HUBZone Council LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2992361/