Yesterday, McHenry County Blog wrote of Vet-Tek, a trucking company NASA Education’s John Blanchard is getting off the ground to provide well-paying truck driving jobs to veterans.
Today’s article is about an effort to use Blanchard’s talents to help veterans set up small businesses.
The following is from a press release:
NASA Education has developed Avant-Garde as a kind of SBA organization which creates and initially funds the service disabled veteran-owned businesses.
Avant-Garde takes care of all requirements for setting up a business, such
- licensing and permits;
- all state and Federal filing requirements;
- payroll, unemployment, local and Federal tax issues;
- all employee and withholdings issues; and
- the education of the disabled veteran in investment opportunities.
We also negotiate all Federal contract terms and agreements, and perform all invoicing and accounting tasks.
Avant-Garde basically educates these individuals on how to be business owners.
Typically these individuals have had plenty of technical experience, but may not know how to run and operate an actual business.
Avant-Garde has created three service disabled veteran-owned businesses since July of 2007.
These are Anchor Solutions Corporation, Liberating Solutions, Inc. and Vet-Teks, Inc.
Anchor Solutions Corporation specializes in call centers, customer service centers, help desk and dispatching services.
Liberating Solutions, Inc. specializes in landscaping and grounds keeping, building maintenance, property management, light construction and demolition.
The main focus of Vet-Teks, Inc. is transportation: livery, medical transport and over the road trucking. One of Vet-Tek’s recent successes is that they currently facilitate a CDL school.
All of the service disabled veteran-owned businesses are successful bidders and benefactors of Federal contracts. Existing contracts are from Federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.S. Department of Defense; U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force; U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs; and the U.S. Department of Treasury.
Avant-Garde’s gross annual contracts total $1,957,500.00 to date, which is really impressive for a little more than eight months of activity.
However, as you can probably imagine, these new business owners quickly learn the cost of doing business when Avant-Garde instructs them in the general business ownership fundamentals, such as payroll, taxes, insurance and accounts payable.
In keeping with the tradition of NASA Education Corporation and John Blanchard, these business owners are not forgetful of their past. They have their fellow veterans’ needs at heart, and they have become significant contributors to NASA Education, Avant-Garde and the growth of this organization.