The progression from the field to the office was intuitive for retired Army officer Bud Almas, who now serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Member of B3 Solutions, LLC; a certified 8(a), service disabled, veteran-owned small business he founded in 2003.
Almas sat down with Mark Schuler, the B3 Solutions president and chief financial officer, and Jim Washington, B3 Solutions’ Chief Operating Officer, to tell us about the company’s evolution during the past decade.
The Persian Gulf War veteran hung up his uniform after serving 20 years active duty — 10 of which were spent as a contracting officer supporting contingency deployments throughout the Middle East, a post he said helped him develop a skill set marketable to companies with strong federal bases.
“It was an easy transition where you find a lot of military people don’t always have that natural career path once they come out of the military,” Almas said in the interview, noting the military taught him the importance of delegating and granting to subordinates the responsibility to execute.
“That is what I have tried to do here at B3 Solutions, whose mission is to deliver best value solutions to support our clients’ success. We are constantly reinforcing the vision that the company has; the fact that we are ONE TEAM and that we are all going towards the same objective,” Almas said.
B3 Solutions is a technology-enabled solutions company that seeks to differentiate itself in the marketplace by using advanced technologies, Schuler told WashingtonExec.
“Through the leadership of our new CTO, Arun Raghu, we are taking a look at the services we are providing, the methodologies that we use and we want to turbo charge them with solutions, if you will, make them more effective by using some advanced technologies – some that we may not even know of today,” Schuler said. ”That’s a constant process that we are going through.”
B3 Solutions has derived much of its identity from its veteran-owned small business title.
The national Veteran Small Business Coalition in June recognized the solutions company with its first annual Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Small Business Award.
The award recognized B3 Solutions for providing employment opportunities to veterans and for giving back to veterans and their families — a feat the company formalized this past January with the implementation of its Veteran’s Outreach Program.
The program aims to position B3 Solutions as the conduit between outside institutions and non-profit organizations to aid veterans and their families financially and through additional support efforts.
“We’re trying to do everything that we can as a company to give back, encouraging our employees to also do that,” Almas said. “But we also are hopefully taking on a role that will serve to help bring other companies, especially veteran-owned companies who are in a position, to do something more to reach out and help our veterans and their families.
The company has attempted to position itself in such a way that it serves as a role model for other veteran-owned companies during a time in which many businesses and employees are feeling the effects of constrained government budgets.
Washington said a combination of traditional cycles and the budget sequester have created a downward pressure of budget obligations, which likely mean a slight increase in opportunities for smaller businesses who can respond to jobs that require a quick response.
The future, then, is bright for B3 Solutions.
“I think this is an opportunity for those who can and are willing to innovate,” Schuler said. “When budgets are well-funded companies supporting government agencies tend do a lot of the same. But in lean times, the companies that can provide their customers with innovative solutions that both improve operations while reducing costs are the ones that are not only going to survive but thrive.”
