Friday, May 02, 2008
Crystal Lake Businessman Using Skills to Help Veterans Set Up Small Businesses
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:
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, suchWe also negotiate all Federal contract terms and agreements, and perform all invoicing and accounting tasks.
- 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.
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.
Labels: Anchor Solutions, Avant-Garde, John Blanchard, Liberating Solutions, NASA Education, Vet-Teks
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Veteran Assistance Firm Bids Low for McHenry Blacktop Dump Clean-Up
When one of my friends lived in Covered Bridge Trails, he took me to see what he called the dump between his part of the subdivision and Walkup Road, a.k.a, the McHenry Blacktop.
It was a mess.
The McHenry County State’s Attorney got a court order demanding clean-up and somehow the county gained the power to hire someone to clean it up.
Bids were let and Monday they were opened.
All promised to clean up the mess by August 20th, three weeks from now, except Langos Corporation, which wanted 45 days. The most expensive, Omega Demolition of Elgin, said it would finish in 9 days.
Low bidder at just $1 was Anchor Solutions, part of the Avant-Garde group of companies created to help Veterans re-enter the workforce.
Next lowest was $1,000 from Paul Iverson. He is probably the owner of the property about which this Northwest Herald article and editorial were written.
McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Dave Stone told me that is the case.
“He’s disqualified,” Stone said.
“He was court ordered to do the clean-up in 30 days and he didn’t do it.”
I asked if Stone had “any idea when will it be let?”
“I hope tomorrow,” he replied.
The next highest bidder was NASA Education at $4,999. It is related to Anchor, with John Blanchard being its driving force. It sponsors the Homeless Veteran Stand-Downs at Camp Algonquin that I wrote about on October 4th of last year and March 7th.
The National Association of Systems Administrators, Blanchard’s main company bid $8,999. Another Avant-Garde firm Liberating Solutions said it would do the work for $14,900.
Omega Demolition of Elgin bid $22,000, while Langos Corporation of Barrington Hills came in at $48,000. Highest bidder was Excavating Concepts of Woodstock at $98,525.
The Avant-Garde companies were created to help homeless, disabled, disadvantaged and displaced veterans re-enter the workforce as productive citizens.
Liberating Solutions just won a $270,000 contract Thursday from the Bureau of Public Debt for loading and delivering 150 desktop computers.
Vet-Teks, another of the Avant-Garde companies received news that it had won a $3,800 contract with Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy to remove trees from five acres of property in Joliet, which Ft. McCoy uses for an artillery range.
John Blanchard is president of the National Association of System Administrators, a company that maintains computer hardware to numerous government and private institutions, such as, Northern Illinois, Western Illinois, Eastern Illinois and Illinois State Universities, as well as mortgage company Sallie Mae and the Department of the Navy’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, among other places.
He also runs NASA Corp., which designs case management software for Veterans organizations and Veterans Assistance Commission. The program is installed in McHenry County. The firm also has designed and sells software to keep track of court cases. The Ho-Chunk Nation and 21 counties in Indiana utilize the program.
All of Blanchard’s firms are housed at 3305 South Route 31.
When contacted, Catherine Link, McHenry County’s purchasing person, told McHenry County Blog,“
It was a mess.
The McHenry County State’s Attorney got a court order demanding clean-up and somehow the county gained the power to hire someone to clean it up.
Bids were let and Monday they were opened.
All promised to clean up the mess by August 20th, three weeks from now, except Langos Corporation, which wanted 45 days. The most expensive, Omega Demolition of Elgin, said it would finish in 9 days.
Low bidder at just $1 was Anchor Solutions, part of the Avant-Garde group of companies created to help Veterans re-enter the workforce.
Next lowest was $1,000 from Paul Iverson. He is probably the owner of the property about which this Northwest Herald article and editorial were written.
McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Dave Stone told me that is the case.
“He’s disqualified,” Stone said.
“He was court ordered to do the clean-up in 30 days and he didn’t do it.”
I asked if Stone had “any idea when will it be let?”
“I hope tomorrow,” he replied.
The next highest bidder was NASA Education at $4,999. It is related to Anchor, with John Blanchard being its driving force. It sponsors the Homeless Veteran Stand-Downs at Camp Algonquin that I wrote about on October 4th of last year and March 7th.The National Association of Systems Administrators, Blanchard’s main company bid $8,999. Another Avant-Garde firm Liberating Solutions said it would do the work for $14,900.
Omega Demolition of Elgin bid $22,000, while Langos Corporation of Barrington Hills came in at $48,000. Highest bidder was Excavating Concepts of Woodstock at $98,525.
The Avant-Garde companies were created to help homeless, disabled, disadvantaged and displaced veterans re-enter the workforce as productive citizens.
Liberating Solutions just won a $270,000 contract Thursday from the Bureau of Public Debt for loading and delivering 150 desktop computers.
Vet-Teks, another of the Avant-Garde companies received news that it had won a $3,800 contract with Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy to remove trees from five acres of property in Joliet, which Ft. McCoy uses for an artillery range.
John Blanchard is president of the National Association of System Administrators, a company that maintains computer hardware to numerous government and private institutions, such as, Northern Illinois, Western Illinois, Eastern Illinois and Illinois State Universities, as well as mortgage company Sallie Mae and the Department of the Navy’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, among other places.
He also runs NASA Corp., which designs case management software for Veterans organizations and Veterans Assistance Commission. The program is installed in McHenry County. The firm also has designed and sells software to keep track of court cases. The Ho-Chunk Nation and 21 counties in Indiana utilize the program.
All of Blanchard’s firms are housed at 3305 South Route 31.
When contacted, Catherine Link, McHenry County’s purchasing person, told McHenry County Blog,“
I can’t reveal any information when a bid is pending.”Having worked for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, the state’s purchasing agency, I find the secrecy strange. Once bids are opened, people have a right to know who bid what…at least they used to in state government.
Labels: Avant-Garde, Catherine Link, Dave Stone, Liberating Solutions, McHenry County, NASA Educational Foundation, Paul Iverson
