The finalists for this year’s Greater Washington Government Contractor Awards were announced in September and WashingtonExec is bringing you its annual series with the nominees.
The Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce and Professional Services Council have unveiled the finalists for the 14th Annual Greater Washington Government Contractor Awards, the premier awards event for the Washington area government contracting community. The winners will be named at a Nov. 1 gala dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner.
WashingtonExec talked with one of the finalists, Everett S. Johnson, founder and CEO of E3 Federal Solutions, to get his take on leadership, among other issues.
WashingtonExec: What is your organization’s plan for growth over the next 3-5 years?
Everett Johnson: At the beginning of 2016, we developed our Vision 2021, which outlines our growth plan for the next 5 years. It details how our revenue sources will change from small business prime contracts to unrestricted prime and subcontracts, which in turn drives our pipeline requirements throughout that 5-year period.
Additionally, we’ve laid out a plan to more fully develop and expand our service offerings, hire key personnel, invest in our infrastructure, and identify time periods to consider M&A activities to acquire new vehicles, capabilities, and/or clients. Our entire leadership team understands and is aligned with the Vision 2021 and all of our goals are focused on its execution.
WashingtonExec: What was your organization’s largest accomplishment in the last 12-18 months?
Everett Johnson: It’s hard to give just one accomplishment because we have so many things going on, but if I had to name just one, it would be winning our major re-competes at CBP and GSA. This not only provides us with a strong revenue base for the next 5 years, but it proves that we are valued by our clients. And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Kudos to both our CBP and GSA teams for embracing our clients mission, delivery excellence, and making a difference.
WashingtonExec: What are the largest challenges that you predict your business will face in the next 5 years?
Everett Johnson: No doubt it will be winning in the unrestricted environment. We have small business vehicles that we will maintain a small business status, but outside of those, we are going to have to play with the big boys. And we are doing everything we need to do to compete successfully in that environment. We are maturing our service offerings and differentiators, we’re instilling discipline into our BD and capture process, and we’re doing long term planning and pipeline development. We understand that vehicles are more important than ever and we have a plan to win them.
WashingtonExec: How does your organization maintain engagement with all levels of employees?
Everett Johnson: Corporate culture and engagement are essential to who we are at E3. We work extremely hard to continuously communicate and engage with all levels of the organization. Every year, we distribute an employee survey soliciting information about how we’re doing and where we can improve. We take that feedback and use it the following year to improve ourselves.
Some of the major items we do for employee engagement are establishing cross-functional teams around strategic initiatives. We have teams involved in developing service offerings, conducting marketing/communications, and running our mentor/protégé program. We have an active learning series known as E3 University, which includes Manager Hot Topics, Lunch & Learns, Certification boot camps, and other employee-led classes.
We routinely have project, division and corporate social events both locally and nationally. Our leadership team sends birthday cards to all employees, and we send flowers for birth announcements and “get wells.” Every month, we have CxO chats, where our CxOs answer employee questions and we have a private Facebook Group page where employees can hear about what’s happening across the company and they can share information and announcements with colleagues. I probably haven’t hit them all, but as you can tell, we have many ways that we keep employees engaged and active in the growth of their career and the company.
WashingtonExec: How is your business involved in the community? (corporate citizenship)
Everett Johnson: One of our core values is “community” and we define it as: “Internally, we will always value our employee relationships. We will continuously strive to strengthen the E3 family and will seek out opportunities to help our colleagues in need. Externally, we will always remember those less fortunate and we will give back to our community. We will always strive to pay it forward.”
Early on, we established an E3 Cares program, which is a grassroots volunteer program run and sponsored by E3 employees. We participate in approximately 10 programs annually and provide up to 40 hours for each employee to volunteer.
A few organizations that we consistently contribute to include Kids Enjoy Exercise Now, Wreaths Across America, and the Adopt-a-Family through the Children’s National Medical Center. Other events are identified and led by individual employees who are passionate about a particular cause. E3 Cares works with the individual to help with logistics and communication across the company, but it truly is a grassroots movement driven by everyone. It’s a center piece of our culture and has been tremendously successful.
Related: Q&A with 2016 GovCon Award Finalist Craig Reed, President and COO of NT Concepts
