083: Anthony Closson - How A USAF veteran built a massive contracting company from the ground up

episode 83. And how am I going to keep people engaged? How am I going to get them to love what they do? And not just have this as a job at a career. So as we grow, it's staying humble, understanding that the obstacles are larger now and they're bigger, which means when they're bigger, there's a bigger impact. When something slips now, it's not slipping this far, it's slipping this far, right? So we just have to watch those things. And as we grow, make sure that we stay focused on what is up there. Welcome to the GovCon Giants 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 in to the right place. Now, the giant that not only walks the walk, but talks the talk, your host, Eric Coffee. Today's guest, U.S. Air Force veteran Anthony Clausen found in his company Colossal Contracting in 2009. The name Colossal comes from the combination of having the build of an athlete and mispronouncing his last name during his time in the Air Force. From 2005 to 2009, Anthony served as a senior program manager for the Air Force before stepping out on his own. One of the stories that makes his particular interview special is that his success and finding, identifying, understanding JV partners was inspired by another guest of ours, Mr. Steven Co. Prince Episode 81. Today, Colossal supports White House Communications Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, SOCOM, United States Air Force, DOL, VA, providing both IT and professional services in Conus and Oconus locations. During this interview, you will hear the challenges obstacles and lessons learned along his pathway to success, how he started as a cyber transport airman, fire dog, and PM, what part of formal education helped him with his business, and how Michael Jordan inspired a portion of the company culture. Stay tuned for this episode with our next giant Anthony Colossan. So my name is Anthony Colossan, I'm the CEO, founder of Colossal Contracting, SB USB started in 2009, based out of Annapolis, Maryland, and Georgia. Okay, okay, great. What is one thing that was hard when you first started in business that is still hard today? You know, it's a flooded market. There's a lot of competition, right? And when I thought about starting Colossal, I was a sergeant in the Air Force, and I was working daily with contractors like Lockheed Martin and the big guys at AFDW, and then some small businesses too, and I realized when I wanted to do this, I had to find a way to make my team and myself special. Something that was different, something that people knew when they say the name Colossal, what we're good at, what we're really good at, right? And being able to separate ourselves. And that is a constant work of progress from day one when I started in 2009 to our sales kickoff that's happening. Next week is, how do we continually define our space in this market? What do we do that's special? How do people recognize us in our brand? And that is a constant evolution that you have to always be focusing on, or are you just going to turn into another number? That's interesting. When you first started, did you have any experience in IT? I did. I was considered now a cyber transport airman. I was actually a wire dog, and then I turned into a project manager, so I was handling the BRAC IT requirements. You remember BRAC? I remember BRAC. Yeah, I remember BRAC. That was so well ago. The main part of that was being run at AFDW for city and all these places collapsing, coming to Andrews, and my job was to gather all of the IT requirements for these thousands of people. Make sure the spaces were ready, build out IT where needed, and it was a great senior NCO that gave me a chance that most staff sergeants wouldn't have that opportunity. It was mostly being held by lieutenant's and officers. I was very thankful that Senior Cludier saw it in me that I could handle the position, and some other great people, Ryan Principi, who actually works with us at Colossum, how it was one of my former officers. But they saw it in me and gave me the opportunity to do it, and it just clicked. IT for me and the way to support the mission, I had these contractors that needed to support us. When I thought about owning my own company and building it, I was the guy on the other side of the table at one point, evaluating proposals, being tough on requirements, understanding and making them drive the fact that if I have a mission to do AFDW has a big mission, we have the Pentagon, we have Andrews, we have bowling, there was no delays. You missed it before I would get hammered. So I understood that mission in protocol, so having that is what empowered Colossal to take that first jump, and that's how I got our first contract was, when I left Andrews, I went back to that same community and said, "Hey, I have my own company, I still want to support you, I know Andrews in the Pentagon like the back of my hand, how can I help?" And they pointed me in the direction of some larger businesses, and I went and pitched myself to them, and they thought I was worthy, and I started getting subcontracts and building up slowly from there. Right, wow, wow. And then your first hire, was it a network person, IT person, was a project manager, what that looked like? I actually reached out to a couple of people, but it was a mixture of my cousin, who lived in Philadelphia, I knew it was just a hard worker, he was a cable pulling guy, the rest, after that were Air Force buddies, guys that were in the Air Force with me that got out, and I called them one day, I was like, "I know this sounds crazy, but I'm going to start my own company, and we're going to work at Andrews, we're going to do low voltage cabling project management, and they were all wire dogs too," and they said, "I'm on the way." And from there, I started placing them, and we started earning our reputation as a good subcontractor. I think people forget the fact, they want to go right to the prime spot, and I want the big money, and I want this, the lessons you learn on being a good subcontractor prepare you to be a good prime contractor, and it's not the lessons you want to learn, some of them are really tough, and you get beat up by the big guys, but they have prepared me now to be the prime contractor, and manage lots of stops. It was a tough lesson, but I think it was required to get going on. I agree, absolutely. I tell people, the government a lot of times gives you more than you can bite off, so you want to learn that small rather than when you get too big, and they're like, "By the way, we know you're going to do this IT thing, but can you fix that building to the same time?" But that's nothing to IT. Yeah, we know, but it's the building is good, right? Is that thing? Yeah, it's good. So, yeah, I warn people a lot of times. I said, be careful what you wish for, because you might just get that plus sum, and we've had a lot of those experiences. So what one thing that was hard in the beginning, that's now easier today? You know, that's really tough, because the needs, the ones, the troubles, changes, your company changes, right? Things that were like, for instance, lines of credit, there's a perfect one. So think about Colossal starting in 2009, when the economy tanked. Tanked, yeah, it was tanked. And I had zero dollars to start Colossal. I had the last government paycheck of a staff sergeant, which doesn't go very far, and I had need, but getting lines of credit and people to back you financially, I saved up $100,000, and over our contracts and I went into a bank and asked for a $10,000 credit card, what do you get? That's how bad the economy was then. And so getting those initial lines of credit because what people got to understand is you better be ready to scale. If you're talking all this, you know, and you're that serious, and you're intentional about growth, you need to be looking one step ahead, and that is, how am I going to handle that growth if I could get my hands on? Right? And that was something that in the beginning, I was realizing, like, and if I hit this next contract, and I get 11 people, how am I going to do payroll for the first few months? You know, that's X amount of dollars. I don't have that capital. How do I get the lines of credit? So I would say to me that the hardest thing wasn't for me because I was, again, you have to sell yourself, then build the team and sell your team. I had that part, but getting the finances and understanding how the money works was the hardest thing. And as you grow, people that stay indoors in your face, year one and year two are saying, hey, how you doing, man? I think in a meeting with you and talking about a line of credit, you're like, dude, remember me as the guy that you said, I couldn't have a $10,000 credit card. So I would say that the hardest thing for us that we encountered in a small business wasn't getting the work. It was figuring out how to execute it once you had it financially because it's not easy to get lines of credit for small businesses. And that was our big hurdle. Now that we're bigger, we have some more assets. We have things that we could leverage. And now I understand that game very well. And I had a mentor that said that if you don't know your banker by his first name and know where he lives, then you have a problem because you should be locked step with your banker and understanding and keeping them involved in your business. I do presentations for them. I call them to show them where we are, what we're doing. And sometimes it's like, you know, I don't need that. But other times, they're like, thank you. Now I can go underwriting and ask them for the additional money because I understand you. I definitely would say one of the hardest thing was getting the finances to grow. - Okay, before I ask this question, I looked at your background, you went to Strayer's University, St. Louis University. Do you think that formal education matters? - Man, that's such a hard question. And I don't wanna disobey your education. You know what I mean? - No, of course not. But, you know. - But I mean, you're out in a space, you're in an industry, you see people that you're working with, you said you hired some of your buddies. I mean, you know, that's the reality of it. You know, education, the accounting classes. I would say-- - Right, self-education. - Yes, the accounting, getting the principles of accounting in the MBA programs. And, you know, a lot of the, you know, the odds of the reason I stayed in school, I actually, I think I finished my second master's. I just went until, literally, in the VA call, he was like, "You cannot take it more than a class "and it will not take it more." Because I needed that money to take care of my family as I was growing colossal. You got to think they pay you a percentage, you know, of that G.I. bill-- - You're living expense and Thanksgiving. - It saved my life, man, because it helped me chase my dream. And I was so thankful that my service really paid off because I was able to take care of my family with that money while I was growing colossal. So the formal education part, I would say this, I had a couple of classes where that were taught by industry professions. And that, to me, was impacting. We had, like, vice presidents of large healthcare companies that would come in and teach and share. We had different people that would come in at St. Leo. To me, listening not from a professor who's never lived in our world, right? But they would get these guys and they wanted to teach night classes that were executives and how it was just like. Now, I can dig in that. I was usually zoned down, it's not okay. I was thinking about growing my company by the time. So instead of been and say, well, no, I did this yesterday and this is how I did it, that to me is super valuable. So I would say any chance that you get to learn from somebody who's been there, you need to tune in. But the standard education it teaches you how to do tasks, right? But that experience education that I got and a couple of those classes was amazing. - Thank you for that. What to, and again, we've got some really standard stuff, but I don't know. At this kind of my brain, when I was looking you up, what to successful entrepreneurs have to worry about as they grow personally and professionally emotionally, what things do people have to be concerned over? For example, some people say more money, more problems, you see your problems change, things are different now. Yes, you don't have the lines of credit issue, but then you have, I mean, you're getting to the point where maybe you're knocking on the door of those bigger companies, right? You're not so much of a small business. You're becoming a threat to larger organizations. What kind of other things do people have to worry about? As they continue to grow? And that's big, right? Money changes people, right? And on all levels, right? - Sure. - Now, the luckiest for me is I don't come for much. So it'll never change or define who I am 'cause I didn't come for much, right? I had lots of love in my family, but money was not there. But I had the love, which was more important than the month. - Sure. - And so every dollar to me, I'm blessed and I'm thankful for it. And seeing able to be able to provide for my employees and their families, give them good benefits. I didn't have healthcare grown up. I never had dentist or healthcare, you know? So it's those things that I truly like, you know, hold on to and really admire and I'm thankful for. So the money won't change me, but it will change other people. So I've noticed that, you know, envy is dangerous, greed is dangerous in people. You have to be able to watch those things, you know? But you've got to remember what got you here and stay humble in that way. And I don't allow that to change. But as the company grows to your point is there's new obstacles that you don't see that the only way you're going to learn is through these types of conversations with people like yourself. And there's other types of learning experiences and education through mentors or, you know, where when you get bigger, you become competitors like you see some people where, you know, we're all friendly when we see each other at the conference. But I think a swing they probably would like to. - Sure. - You know, in the reality is there's millions of dollars at stake, so trust has to be a factor, right? But if you stay close to who you are and where you come from, you're not allowing the money to change you, but you got to understand that it changes other people. You know, part of the other risks that come with this is the financial responsibilities. The numbers are just bigger now, right? - Right. - You know, the payroll bigger. - Yeah. - Yeah, the payroll, you know, where you look at a payroll and you're just like, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? I remember, you know, when Klausel first started that, my wife never knew that I paid payroll and didn't pay our rent. But I knew my people were going to be how I would get to where I wanted to go. It wasn't about me, you know, I've never told her. I've told her now, you know, she's just like, oh my gosh, you know, 'cause I got four kids, you know? Like so, you know, it was a growing of family. But what happens is, as you continue to grow, the complications are different, right? And they're on a grander scale. Now we have HR to think about. We have, you know, I have almost 90 people to take care of, right? And that that weighs heavy on me, right? 'Cause actually our culture and who we are is everything. The minute you lose that, it's gone. So now, you don't have to worry about culture as much when there's three of you sitting in the same office 'cause you know each other, we're the air force together. Like the culture's us, right? - Sure. - Now that there's 90 people to think about, you have to think about that and how am I going to keep people and how am I going to get them to love what they do? And not just have this as a job, but a career. So we just have to wash those things. And as we grow, make sure that we stay focused on what is up there and that's the culture. - And you said you have 90 people to take care of. I saw some where you said 25% of your workforce is veterans. - Yeah, that's huge for us, man. One in four people, our recruiter Joe Roe is just amazing. And we target talent, right? We go after everyone who's talented and some of these cases, the military guys, we found people that we were interviewing guys that were on ships coming back from overseas. Those conversations were crazy. We're going after talent everywhere, right? But in this case, one in four happened to be veterans and we were ecstatic about it. I mean, that's not a lot of people can say that. You know, and being able to give back to the veteran community and the service disabled community, huge. Again, that's why I have, it's where I come from. They understand the mission and what they do is when they get here, they also influence our not veterans. So they can understand the mission too, you know, where the veteran may sit down and say, "This is what that community is going to be looking at." Trust me, I know I used to sit right next to them and I understand what they think in this moment, you know? So it's been a value to be able to scale our company 'cause they come in and influence the mission that we have that influences our customers' mission. - I like that. - The fact that the veterans can help influence the non-veterans. - It's big, it's big. - I never thought about that one. - Yeah, we just hired Brian Principi, who is a commander still in the reserves and he was one of my commanders and his impact on the DOD sales team has been just huge, because some of these guys are amazing sales people, but they, you gotta understand what we saw and what's in our heads who he's able to fine tune their strategy to say, yeah, you're talking to the deputy, maybe you need to be talking to this guy and this is why. And what it's doing is it's given that focus and then when we're deploying, we're telling our deployment engineers, this is what the government's going to expect. Here's the contract, here's their mission. This is what they're gonna be looking for and it is done amazing things to the company. - I can tell you, the conversation we've had thus far, I have some people that I can send this to, that's this is gonna help benefit me. I'm trying to tell them, hey, you don't understand what the government's looking at. It's like, oh, it's okay, we'll just send that in and we'll wait for the respond. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm telling you in advance, they're not gonna go for that. - So this conversation is valuable for me already. I can tell you, this is good stuff. I'm gonna send this over to some of my guys as soon as we get off. That's wonderful. Now, when you first started, you told me you had struggles with hiring in terms of lines of credit. You started as a subcontractor. But you were always, you said you were thinking about starting Kalasso when you were a program manager. Does that go back to childhood? Did you ever want to have a business at some point? Because they say people are born entrepreneurs or do they become entrepreneurs or do they force into it? What was it that took you there? - Sure, my father was a small business owner and so was my mom. And so we grew up where all the whole family is railroad. So my family going back to great grandparents or all from the Pennsylvania railroad. So tough working class people, South Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the Western P.A. side, the Irid, Alhtuna, very tough people that worked tough jobs and became management and then my dad, he was involved in some technology things in the beginning and I always saw this and was infatuated by it. And as a little kid, I was a city kid so I got in a little more trouble than I should have. But the reality is, is I always had a hustle. [BLANK_AUDIO] First thing I would pull together all of the kids in the little neighborhood there, we pull all of our video games together, the original video game stuff, and we would pull it all together, and then we would rent it to kids from other blocks. - No. - We're not gonna have a little set up and I'd be like, "I got it for this, I got it for that." - Get out of here. - Cut out the kids that were giving me the game, 25 cents, or, you know, running this enterprise from my room, from my bunk bed, when I'm like eight years old. But this is what I was always thought of doing, and then in high school, I became something else, and then in college, I worked, I was a bodyguard in work security, and my mentor is a multi-millionaire that owned nightclubs, restaurants, shoe stores, jewelry chains, and my job is to protect him and protect his business. So this is me at 18 years old before the military, and I did that until I was 25. And people realized I joined the military when I was 25 years old, which is older, but it allowed me to follow this man around and watch him build businesses, and me protect his house and understand how the business worked. And it was like, it just sped my mind up, right? But I needed the military to straighten me out, because I had all this energy, but I needed it to straighten me out, and I was heading in some paths that weren't me. You know, and I wasn't, the thing about that industry is it has things about it that I didn't like, right? And I needed some structure to finish my education. So I went into the military, which is very non-entrepreneurial at the time, right? Like, no, so when it's hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer. You think you're tough, you're not hammer, hammer, hammer. You want to do what your way, don't hammer, hammer, hammer. And they're driving us into you what it did is it gave me all the discipline out there. Had all my ideas still, had all my visions, but now I had discipline. And then on the way out of the military, as I was working with these contractors, I always felt the story of the people I said, when was the day you decided to do colossal? I was in Iraq and Kuwait, and we were training contractors on how to splice fiber and splice cable, right? And I'm training these guys where in all the kinds of crazy places, in a hundred to 150 degree weather, splicing cable, you know, in some dangerous places, you know, and one of the contractors said something to deal the contract about how much you got paid. And I was, it blew my mind 'cause you got to think back in 2007, what they were paying contractors and defense contractors. Oh yeah, I remember that. Was that like Calibur and Days, like Hallibur and those guys? Yeah, I can't, yeah. What was the other one? Oh, wait, Blackwater. Yeah, Blackwater, that's it. Oh, those guys, you know what? I think a couple of my buddies went over there overseas, and like six months made like 150,000, or something like that, cash, no taxes. I remember that, I remember that, I remember that. And I'm training these guys to splice fiber, and I heard how much they got paid, and I think I made like 10 grand hold on up there. And you know, in some, and you're training them. Yeah, and I'm like, all right, time out here. I think I could bring something special to this. And then when I got to Andrew's, I got to do the business side of it. Right. And look at the vision as an enterprise. How to support admission. And, and I learned from some good contract. A lot of Keith was there, Verizon was there, S.I.C. was there, you know, there was a lot of big guys that I got a chance, my job is to represent the content and beat them up occasionally, right? So I understood what was accessible, what was acceptable, and not, right? So, you know, through that vision is, is really how colossal started, you know, my vision for it. So ever since I was a kid to answer your question, it was always in my mind, but I, you have to get to the, you have to understand the target or the best, and then make sure you're connecting the dots on the way up, right? And I think a lot of people want to skip these steps, me included, any entrepreneur does, right? Yeah, not ours. What's the doors? They're like, you know what I mean? Like this, this, this, this. Get it in this idea. I was part of these, like, you know, groups, where people had all these ideas, ideas are great, but if you don't know how to do the discipline, execute it steps to get there, you're going to fall short. And that's what the military did for me. Once, once I knew how to take the hustle that, the street and the life that was before all of that, you put that discipline in it, and it was able to connect those dots. So, let's say the guy or the girl, you know, I'm an expert at artificial intelligence. I'm an expert at solar charging stations, right? For the new electric cars. The government, you know, they're going to spend a lot of money in these areas. Hey, Anthony, you know, what do you suggest that I do? Oh, that's tough, right? So is that, is that the question of, and just make sure I'm getting this right? Is this is someone saying I have these talents? I'm saying I have these talents, right? So I'm, because again, I'm talking about new technologies, right? We're not talking about stuff that you're doing. So that way, hey, it's no competition. I may actually be able to support you. Maybe, you know, you'll buy me one day, like Google or somebody, right? So, but hey, I'm, I'm this super genius. I've worked on these technologies. You know, I understand the government's going to be buying this stuff. In fact, I, I think with the new administration, they're prioritizing the solar charging stations now, or the charging stations for electric cars. I'm sorry, I keep saying solar, but the charging stations. I know that technology in and out. I'm the best, you know, I worked, I built, I worked on a technology. I've got a couple of patents on it. You know, what do you, hey, where should I start? What do you think? Wow, and that's, that's a great question, because I really think that people should take that question before they start a company and go after, you know, defense and civilian money, because there's tons of talented people out there, right? But it was, it's a mixture of your, your talents and who you know, right? And what you know about our industry, what I would say to that person is, you better clearly understand how you're going to reach the government. And what I mean by that is there's a huge gap between your idea, your talents, and executing a government contract, right? And proceeding one. You know, did you think about what type of entity you are? What are you going to be? Are you going to be an STV OSB? Are you going to be an A&A? Do you know the process to be an A&A? The process to be CV, STV OSB? So you start your LLC and you start napping out. But if you're not thinking about the creation of your company, who you're going to be? Who you want to be? Who your target audience is? And then once you understand how you're going to get the business and market yourself with who you are and what you're going to do, it's how are you going to execute a contract? Are you going after primes? Are you selling to SIs? Are you selling to the government? Are you going to try and go all in? Do you have the contract vehicle necessary? How do they do acquisitions? So if I'm focused on AI and I know say AFDW or special operations can go after it, you would have to do enough intelligence gathering to know what big players are there now, what's your competition looks like? How am I going to get my talents to become something they want? And how do I get it executed? People move too fast. They forget about all of those cycles that I said in between that are the most critical part. You have all this talent and hey, check out this thing I created. And then they're like, I'm here. Everyone's like, yeah, you and everyone else. So how can I help you? I know that sometimes maybe my goal to getting the influencing on the government is maybe influencing an SI first. Maybe if I can get that meeting with the program manager from Verizon or whoever else, and say, hey, listen, this is what I do. This is my set of side code. Help me help you, right? I know I have a customer at Andrews that's interested in this, but I don't have the let's contract. It's piecing it together and making sure that your idea, your business, can be marketable, can support a government's mission, and can be acquired in some way. How do you connect all those dots? And I think that people don't think through that enough. You said something about get the business and market yourself. I think even you skipped over that part of, right? Like, hey, I don't even know how to market. You know, I'm just, hey, look, I'm just the guy who does this and knows the technology. I don't know about marketing myself. Where would I go to learn? How to do that? That's a great point. So that, and again, when I first started, I was like, but my value was me and my intelligence of what I knew, right, and what I could provide to the government, right? But I knew that I couldn't go directly to AFDW because I had no contract with them. Colossal and hammy, that was just some dude, right? Like, how am I going to grow this thing? So what I did is I sold my talent to understanding larger companies to say, bring me on as a subcontract. I know you have this contract vehicle because I was there or I did at PBS. I did this, I go to market there first. And then I bring my talents and my connections to the tape. And then the big guy goes, oh, you just don't have your hand out. You're saying, no, sir, I want to bring value to you and the customer. And by being an STV USB, you get to check a box and I have the relationships that I have to tell all the sudden, the conversations I was having were much different than me getting the meeting with the program managers and giving a little review of who I was. They were always like, dude, yeah, you're awesome, but what do you got for them? That's the big guy's mentality is what we got for them. - And I agree with you 1,000% and I love it. And I appreciate that. Why do so many of us go in that way with like, hey, this is who I am, why do you think that is? Why do you think we're missing that? You understand because for you to have to say it means we're missing it. Yeah, if we all knew that, this would even be a conversation. Right. So we're missing it somehow. I think those dots that I explained it earlier are so critical, right? But it's, there's thousands of us, thousands. Right. Just in the beltway, thousands of SDV USBs, right? About the industry and a lot of them are retired generals, kernels. Yeah. I was a little staff sergeant like I was the guy that getting yelled at or getting the coffee for somebody. I come up with great ideas and I would, I would be, but my job was to make my leadership shine and to make sure that the mission was bigger than me. Right. But I didn't have the clout like those guys had. So I knew I had to work even harder because I couldn't walk up to a door. And I had a platform, former, former, you know, panda, this or that, that's not what I had. I had, I had the intelligence of infrastructure. I understood the mission, figured out what the value of that was. I looked at my relationships, I figured out what the value of that was. Package it all together went to a crime and said, this is who I am. This is what I can bring to you. And this is how I'm going to support the mission that I got. That the size or the largest were like, OK, listen to this. It wasn't my handout. People think if you start an sdb usb or an a day that work is just going to fly into your lap. It's the farthest thing from the truth. And in since 2009, the companies that I came into business with that were sdb usb's. Most of them are gone. That is the reality. I watched that industry is in 2009. My competitors that were just starting new companies. Most of them are now gone. And that's the reality of the situation that I had to be hungry. I had to work 70 hours a week. No one was going to give it to me. I had to go get it. And it's the only way that it's going to be successful is because you have to sell you in the beginning. And what you can do. And I think people miss that part. They're like, I'm here. Let's do some business. You know, I got a company. They're like, yes. You know, what did you meet these people at the, the primes? I was like, I was like, I'm going to be a big company. I was like, I'm going to be a big company. I'm going to be a big company. All in S-size and say, hey, I'd like to get a meeting. Stop wasting my time. just put my face off, hang up the phone. And I just had to get back on my wheel, you know, give another call, but I got destroyed. Tell people what's the SI systems integrated. - Okay, there you go. All right, just move a bit. - Yeah. - Hey, go ahead, you got destroyed. - Now, yeah, just destroyed. Just like, don't waste my time. Do you know who I am? And just remembering what that felt like to make sure I never do that for you. - You know, like, but those were some dark days, man. - All right, we're gonna bring around something positive. Tell us about Missing 22. - Missing 22, man. So, you know, I don't think a lot of people realized that I saw this that just about a year ago, I unfortunately lost to one of my friends, who's a military with me, to suicide. I wanna say three or four years ago now, right? And I was thinking about him for some reason. There was a picture, one of my friends saw me and I saw him in the picture and he was like, why? This dude was so talented, so smart, so charismatic, one of the happiest people I've ever met in my life, literally. And he was just like, when he walked in the room, was just a smile of sunshine, where you just wanted to have fun and joke around, no matter where we were, he was that dude. And I got a call a couple years ago that he had hung himself on base and it broke my heart. And I didn't understand it. And it made me start thinking into it a little bit more. I started doing some research and found out that almost 22 veterans take their lives today. And when you think about only one percent or less serve in the military or the numbers change, you know, that small community, that 22 people are killing themselves at that day. It really gripped my mind to think what is going on here? This is something much bigger than we need to realize that America is realizing right now. 'Cause unfortunately, you hear about a lot about us when we die overseas, right? - Yes. - Three. - You just killed or three. - Hellic up the crash, training mission. - At the time, let's think about this math, right? 22 times 365. And how many times did you see in the news? So and so killed themselves. So it was almost like getting visible terror that has taken over our veterans. So I looked at our team and our, you know, company. I said, what can we do? Started researching Found Mission 22 that has a focus on giving mental health love. You know, making it not, we're also trained and we feel sometimes that we don't want to admit that we're having the shoes. You know, we're tough guys, tough girls where, you know, hey, you know, I've been through it all. And I don't want to ask for help. And what's been happening is it's been a snowball effect that has been taking the lives of these veterans that can't deal with the things they're dealing with. And they think the only unfortunate answer at the time is to take their life. Mission 22 focuses on the ability for you. It's okay to get help. It's okay to ask for help. We have programs that focus on you that don't make it a stigma. You know, I have plenty of friends, you know, that have died and that live with PTSD. And the reality is is we need to talk about it. It needs to be out in the open. So we thought by supporting Mission 22 and doing our 22 for you day, where we broadcast live and do it, 22 push-ups on the hour for every hour to raise money and awareness for Mission 22. And all of the proceeds went there. It was one of the best days I've had in cross history. And in my life, to see how much money we could raise. And that was year one. Year two, we're going for like a hundred grand. So we're going all in. People were really excited to see, that's colossal sculpture. That's what we do, that's who we are. And, you know, I asked our guys, do you guys want to be a part of this? You don't have to be. Everyone was like, I want some of this. So we did it. We were able to raise a bunch of money. And it's something that we is nearer to our heart. - A really quick story. The reason why I found it, GoFundChiant and why I do this podcast. And I also do the YouTube channel was because, during the 2008 crisis, same time. I had a friend of mine who his best friend took his life. And so, I mean, these people were the, again, at the time of my mentors, I was a construction contractor. This guy was doing Tim and I was a year in business. And then, when the real estate market crashed and the bubble, everything hit, he went out of business, right? He lost everything. And he took his life. And, you know, we moved to the government sector that kept our business afloat and kept us going. And I realized that, you know, if this guy only knew about the government marketplace, he could have just transitioned his business, right? More competent, maybe smarter, had it all, had been around, but he didn't see any options and he didn't see any way out. And so, that's the reason why I started doing the challenge that I created and the podcast that I did was because of that. - It's amazing. You got to find ways to give back, man. You can't just spend your life taking. And if we've been given these gifts and we just keep them for ourselves, what's the point of having, you know? It's the thing that shows like this and the ability to give back to fellow entrepreneurs and veterans and all of the people alike, to give that little piece of knowledge, maybe they get from this conversation that helps them understand that gap that we're talking about. So one day they can reciprocate and give back to someone else. - And that's what we do. And that's what we do here and that's what we're about is teaching people that there's another way out there. Because again, I understand that the government has lots of programs and they spend money, but they don't have a marketing budget. You don't see this advertised. You don't see this promote as a career path. Like, you know, the government even admittedly says that there's a short fall in cybersecurity and tech and America, right? People going through that and we're falling short to other countries. This is great vulnerabilities. But again, I don't see no national advertising campaign. I don't, you know, I don't see people, people like, people still ask me, what do you do for a living? - Yeah, seriously. It's, it's, it's, people don't have no idea what I do. I don't even tell, I usually just tell people I'm a government contractor. And they're just like, so what's that mean? You know, and, and it ends in many conversations, you know, but to your point is there's no manual. There's no college class you can take. There's just a lot of hard knocks and lessons learned and good mentors along the way that, that could help paint this story. And everyone's got their own story. - No, everyone's got their own story. Do you have any books that you recommend or that you gift off to the people? - So, you know, my big thing is leadership, right? - Okay. - I, I love the, the Jaco Willek and extreme ownership is, is a really core for, for what I do. Owning something is huge. Everyone has to have ownership in your company and feel like they're part of something. Because, you know, from the top down, if you have weak leaders that won't accept responsibility, it's gonna be a vicious trickle effect down. So that book, having someone finally say, like, now this is your fault. You need to take this, right? The good and the bad. I love when I ask some of my leadership, like, what happened here, you know what they say? That's on me, I got it. It could be three levels beneath them, but the always the response to them, I asked two of them the other day on a text message. Hey, where was the ball dropped? They both said me, and the beauty, what? And, you know, that was three steps below him, but they were like, nah, that's me, I got it. I'll let you know when it's done. I love that fact of owning it. And that book shows how that combat related stories can be brought over to our world, right? And not in the fact of, you know, we're going to fight wars. No, we're not doing that. But what other great example can be done of owning something when a life is on the line, right? Of when you have to lead in a world in a time that is very unforgiving, right? And what it teaches them is to own every bit of part of it. And I just, I really like it. Listening to them is pretty intense, too. If you do the podcast, like-- Right, right. It was done, good shots everywhere, you know? And you're just like, dude, like, you can feel it. You're there, you're like, you put it in the side. You're like, okay, so it's pretty cool. You know, I'm more of a podcast guy, like I love listening to people. I listen to entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban. And I, you know, I love hearing from you. That is my real jam, this podcast now. I get more out of the, like I said, going out of a books and stuff. Yeah. Going for the experience stuff, just like the Jack O'Willough, who's been there, right? And Mark Cuban, who owns billions of dollars of he owns so many businesses in that entire world. And he looks to the small business to invest back in. Most of those guys, when they get to that level, they're not messing with companies that are under $150,000. Right, sure. Like, they're not better than know who you are. This guy's investing in companies that are $100,000. Like, I love that about him. He's crazy, right? He's all over the place. Yeah, no, he's all over the place. I really, when he first bought the basketball team, and he's got all the fines and violations. Dude, he's nuts. He's nuts. He did the planes and the seats. But what I love about Mark Cuban is he's not going to change for anyone. Right. I love that about him. They're good in the bad, right? And that's the thing about me and other leaders that I've met is don't let this game change you. Don't let this industry change you. There's a reason you are where you are. Stay true to that. And you'll find that it'll pay you back, right? The good end of that. I got a lot of bad stuff about me, too. But I try to bring the good with it, too. And seeing people like Mark Cuban and his other mentors that I've learned from in our industry is they've not changed who they are. Money didn't change. them. You know the responsibilities didn't change them. They have different responsibilities, but who they are at their core is still the same. You said you have four kids. What are the ages? Oh, man. So I got a 12-year-old. I have a nine-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a 14-month-old. Boys, girls. Oh, boys. All boys. All boys. Yeah, Closon House is real. Res of it, it's real. So I got four little type A personalities duking it out over everything you could think of. A lot of praying. A lot of praying. You know, but they keep me busy. It's everything I ever wanted to know. That's amazing. That's great. That's great. Recently, what's one of your happiest purchases you made off Amazon? Oh, boy. My wife could probably answer that better than I can. She's pretty aggressive with the Amazon purchase saying, I don't have a lot for Amazon. I'll tell you the truth. You know, I'm not a big Amazon guy. You know what I buy is the stuff through the portal like videos and podcasts. Okay. You know, movies still like that. Oh, I did get a good pair of air Jordans. Ah, there you go. I'm a Jordan guy. All right. I'm a man. I'm a serious Jordan guy. Just. See? That's a roasted competitor. I don't know. Why would I not have a shoot? No, no, absolutely. No, no. I had. You know what? I love that question. I start asking like my last 20 guys. And you get so many different experienced answers of things that people, you know, what we never talked about through in the whole show. And then they bring it up as like, oh, my sister has cancer in the hospital, and I send her chocolates every week through Amazon. Connecting story. Right. So. Connecting story. So that that question has sparked so many different, um, fairing interests that people have outside of work and business and, you know, all the other stuff. So I found out you were Jordan, man. It's I like that. I'm a Jordan. I actually give Jordans out to our number one salespeople because a lot of it is I actually have some sections of our sales training material based on Jordan because he was such a fierce competitor. Okay. If you watch those stories on him, some of the things he did and not accepting defeat and taking ownership and those things, we would we would call it be like Mike. And and the way that he approached basketball needs to be approached in sales in a lot of way. You have to have a chip on your shoulder. You have to be willing to get hung up on. You cannot quit. You have to be relentless. Right. You have to be a little bit of selfish with your time to be able to make time for for something bigger than you. Right. And and his his competition and the way he views things. We hold that tight because in sales, you have to be competitive. I want you to not be happy when your name is number seven on the board. I don't want you on our team if that doesn't bother you. If and that is the Jordan mentality. So to our number one salespeople, I buy them Jordans and I put a little rocket chip on them and a colossal logo that I have done for each of the Jordan's. I'll send you a picture. But it's big part of who we are. So there's that connecting store to my to my Amazon purchase boom. See? I would have never I would have never even known to ask. See, there you go. No, I mean, listen, I've done this a couple of times. There you are. I've done a couple of times. So I've figured it's the odd place for job that you work that no one may have ever guessed. Oh, boy. So during during high school, I would break concrete. I had a job. My dad worked for a concrete cutting company. And they would drop me off in the middle of nowhere with a jackhammer or a sledgehammer and a peanut butter and jelly and the Georgia heat and come back eight hours to pick me up. And I did this for summers. And it helped me understand that this was tough work. And I was the lowest I worked for the laborers. So there was the guy cutting the labor and then Anthony. Get out of here. That doesn't teach you humility and what a good day work is. Nothing will. So what that time is like I need to get an education. I want to be a laborer one day. Then I want to be the cutter that I want to be his boss and then want to own this place. That was my vision of of how I saw my how I was the lowest on the totem pole doing what I was doing. How I I didn't want to be that forever. And it was good that I was there because I know what that guy feels like. And that that is one of the biggest things I think that I've ever been that I've ever been taught is I know what it feels like to be the installer, the laborer, the guy who breaks things, the guy who just carries things all the way up to the top, right? So I'd never forget what that guy feels like. You know, so having that job, it taught me so much of one that it's really hot in Georgia. And when you're on asphalt, that's 10 stories in the air that your head better be covered here. We'll get burned, especially the haircut that I have. I have a little more hair back then, but it wasn't great. You know, the reality is, man, it's having those types of jobs. And I did that for years and tough, tough work. Were you mad at your parents at the time? You know, no, man, I always wanted to have a job. Okay. They never, my parents never were like, you need to go get a job. I always had a job. And it was my dad's work. I think my dad was a hard work and fortunately just passed. But his experiences and what he's taught me, my hardest day is like, that's nothing. You know, like, and it's because I've seen those days of work and what they're like. And Eric and I always say my business partners, I don't want to go back. I want to work hard to continue to earn more to be able to provide for my family, which in turn provides for my company's families. I know what it feels like to be that and to not have money, to worry about every penny, right? To was, was rent going to get paid? Where are we going to lose our house? Where cars going to get repot? I felt that all in my life. I don't, I don't want to go back. You mentioned Eric's name. I saw that he's, he made him president recently. How did you guys find each other? Oh, man, he's, he's a one in a million. He's just is a one in a million. He worked for a company that was a partner of mine. He just, from a young age, Eric, I think he's only 35, 40. He's 35. So young dude understands sales in a way that is just out of this world. I'm telling you right now, he was one of the best in our industry when I first came to him with the opportunity to partner and become part of Colossal. And what I saw him was it's not just him being the best salesperson, but his genuine, the genuinely, I can't say being genuine, right? Being, being genuine was something that isn't always there in the sales world. It's just not, okay? It's, whether you're buying a car or whatever, sometimes people lose that piece, but his customers will do anything for him. And he would do anything for them. He'll pick up the phone. He'll do whatever's necessary. He'll, he'll lose money, not saying that anybody wants to do that, but he'll do what the mission needs and what the customer has. And when I saw this in him, I realized he was very similar to me in a lot of ways. So what I didn't want was one day to have an investor in Colossal, that just wanted their check every week, right? Hey dude, I own 49% of your company was my check. Right? And in SBUSB world, there's a lot of that right now where people are coming in and buying minority shares and, and then do you answer to them in a lot of ways, even though you're in control, you know, Eric wanted to bring something to the fight. He was like, no, I like your vision, Anthony. I'm willing to take a risk. I mean, he left a very good paying job to come take a risk with us in a very growing state of the business. And was one of those people that when he and I got together, he just boom. And he was able to bring the sales piece. I understand business very well on how to build companies and what's required to get the contract vehicles, how to cover governor evaluations of contracts where he knew the sales piece, how to bring in the talent, how to go to market, how to understand the customer needs, how to deliver solutions they want. And so we just started growing the company and, you know, I tribute a lot of our growth, Eric. I mean, he just, he's a great partner and we'll go out there and fight for it. Comes from a very humble beginning like myself. His family is everything to him. We just share a lot of the same values. And just like my dad, his dad is a hard work and something to do. And I taught him these values that Eric has made. You're not going to out work, Eric. Him and I try it all the time about work each other. And what we end up doing is it's just raising the bar for the whole everyone should keep up with each other. So it's free to the front culture, but he's a word of none. No, that's great. He's also veteran. He's not a veteran. Okay. He's a minority owner. He's a Maryland guy of Frostburg graduate, actually. All right. Any quotes or anything that you, I know that you like Jordan and he's at any other quotes or favorite sayings that you guys that you have maybe run an office somewhere or something that you guys say often. So this is a little intense, but I'm going to and I had people have heard this probably. First of all, your name is colossal. Okay. And we look at you. I don't know how tall you are. I'm six to 260 pounds. So okay. All right. I saw you play a little the footballs. I mean, you're probably I'm sort of colossal in you all come together. I mean, again, no one ever approached me to be a bouncer when I was 18. Okay. You're right. I wait. I wrestled in 10th grade 103s. Okay. Yeah. And I've never had a problem making a wait. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard for me to weigh under 250. I was think I was like 17 year old. I was always a pretty big, pretty big kid, you know, so, but, you know, the name colossal actually comes from basic training where I was getting yelled at. My last name's Claossal. Right. So he's like, Claossal. Claossal, Claossal. You big colossal. You get your butt over here. And he called me colossal from then on. I don't think he did my name. So he just called me colossal. And all of the other trainees starting calling me colossal and colossus. And then I got the text, what everyone's called the colossal. And when I thought about the name for the company, I was like, what other more fitting to help we get where I am than the name given to me in basic training, you know, and that's where colossal came from. I had another veteran. And I'm going to let you tell you a story, but I have to say this. His name was business. It's called underlie construction. And I said, why is it because it's so tough? Hurry up, underlie underlie, hurry up, hurry up. That's a good one. It's going to be underlie. That is hilarious. So it's a simple. I'm telling you, be surprised what motivates people and where they get things from. It's, I mean, I think as a human nature, we're all kind of connected and we kind of think alike in a lot of respects, even though we're all very unique and different. So all right, give us that intent saying that you've got some way to give you the backstory where it came from. So I was in a camping guy back and we were there in addition to helper pairs, damaged infrastructure and you know, wars really rough on communication. So we were there and we were staying with an army unit and a security force unit that had patrol. These guys were unfortunately getting blown up almost every other day. And and these dudes that were going out on these patrols knew every day that they were facing eminent danger and still woke up every morning cleaner weapons got in that truck and drove around there to protect us from getting missiles lobbed over the fence or anything else that they could do or or setting traps and you know, different mortar attacks, you know, a lot of ID's and this one dude is this little muscular security forces guy. I'm out there one morning by myself and I'm sitting out there waiting for everyone. I was watching this and I heard and you walked outside. He goes, "All right boys, he said who's it going to be? Is it going to be us or is it going to be them?" I'll tell you right now it's not going to be us. It's going to be them and and it it he is facing eminent danger and is willing to say if it's going to be me or you, it's going to be you. And we often do that in our our happy hours and when we're getting together as a company and I will actually in a brave heart type way walk down the bar and give this out. And when I say is it going to be us or them everyone says them and that persona and that level of competition is what we bring to the money. And I don't know his name to be able to give him that quote but that was all day him. That was all day him and it was all day going to be them and it wasn't going to be them. It wasn't going to be us and so we used that at colossal as our little pump up speech and so I give the quote to a very brave stash sergeant in the United States Air Force that every day I strapped it up to patrol an area that was very unforgiving and taking lives and even in that matter was not going to be out competed it was not going to back down to anybody. So that's my point. No, I like that. I actually that's good. I like it. That's the uniqueness right of having different casts of different experiences. I think someone else is going to say you know what? You know I do something similar but you know my son is his intent. So they got to pump it up. They had our amp it up a little bit right. You know it definitely embodies us. It was such a cool. I remember that moment like it was yesterday and he was putting on his flame retarded jumpsuit as he's screaming this going out the door and there's only like five people outside. It wasn't like he was trying to pump up the world. Oh really? It's only five people. He himself is going to self pump it up. And he looked me right in my eyes as he put his on his things like yeah I know it's just like oh yeah. You know like it was crazy. But isn't that what Michael Jordan did? That is. As that would Kobe Bryant did they went to different right you put you put in it be a different person. You do you have a mindset to change your mindset. Yes. And you have to get dialed in to do that and to do what we do man. Think about it. Oh I do. Don't get shut in your face. You get told no. You're not good enough. You can't do it. Everyone's doing it. What makes you different? You get these challenges every day that within the last 11 years that in the beginning especially if there wasn't for that type of attitude that I learned from my dad and from those mentors I would have said that I probably would have quit somewhere along the way but because it's not who I am and it's not ingrained in me that wasn't even an option. It was like this is going to work or I don't know what else I'm going to do. So I'm just going to put it all into this. So definitely that mindset. Let's let's go ahead and wrap up and share some party words. We'll stay on just afterwards but we'll go ahead and close out for today. Let people know some thoughts and ideas that you want to leave the people with. Sure. So you know first of all you know this experience you know is been amazing for me being able to tell our story being able to to let you hear a little bit about us and the things we run into what's important about Colossal. What makes us different. My road and experience you know you've got to give back and whether it's it's mission 22 whether it's business I can tell everyone listening to this. Once you figure out those steps and you get to where you're going and even along the way right don't forget to give back and know that there's someone that got the door slammed in their face there's someone that got told no and you're going to get told all of this but it's the mindset that you have and your ability to push through it and always know you've got to get back right and and try to be part of something greater than yourself. It's one of our core values that I love so much strive to be part of something greater yourself and as a business owner in the beginning it's about yourself but you're never going to be truly great until it's about everyone else but no thank you thank you I appreciate that and I appreciate you coming on today you know I love it this is that's right no it is it's us by the way let people know how can they support mission 22 sure so you can go to mission 22's website you just put a mission 22 in any browser they have the ability for you to donate right there on the page we're also going to be doing another event next October if you are a business partner or want to be involved you're also going to have an opportunity at that time to donate as yourself as your company we also have marketing opportunities that we put you on the banner to show your support so step one is going to put mission 22 in any browser be able to give right then and there the other is you know be part of our event in October yeah and let us know as well I mean we let we support we've helped support various guests that come onto our show and and also I mean we have an incredible outreach so again this my email list is at 8000 small businesses and growing my on my youtube channel we do about 30,000 views a month 10 to 12,000 unique views a month of all small businesses I don't tell funny stories I don't have cat videos it's all this hardcore government contracting far men's or photos a joint ventures all this stuff um you know we we we bring it we're we're like the govcon source news we we cure it all this information and then disperse it back out so the people that need it the most and it's all free on youtube and so it's something that we do yeah it's something that we do and and I've it's it's been great and I take my time away from my other obligations and I sit down and but again I love this I love happening is engaging conversations with folks and meeting new people then thank you for coming on the show today thank for being on you know Anthony I got to continue talking offline but thank you so much I hope you enjoyed this episode uh stay tuned for any follow-up from Anthony thanks for sticking around govcon giants family this was a fascinating story that again I want to share with folks out there how he came to learn about joint ventures because so many people discredit the power of getting out of your comfort zone and making connections with others I know that it's easier said than done also from my last two live sessions with Judy Brett I know a lot of people say that they do not have any discomfort we're making phone calls and meeting others however the results speak differently Anthony and his particular interview heard the word spoken by mr. co-print which helped him make sense of the joint venture process and from there he was able to put the pieces in place today he has three successful joint ventures helping to contribute to his growth of the firm I cannot stress enough that even if you know your job your business unless you're in the room with people who are doing this day in and day out part of a community that holds you accountable then your journey will be long and turbulent thank you so much for listening to today's episode as always the show notes will be on our website govconcience.com/podcast and if you not already given us a five star review on Apple. Please do so today. Thank you. [Music]