Success Stories

Emergency Response Fire Medical, LLC was recently awarded a five-year VIPR contract totaling $20 million from the United States Forest Service.

ERFM provides medical care for wildland firefighters and government employees. They will be providing these services as line medics for the awarded contract.

Business owner Jason Olson heard about APEX Accelerators from other contractors who had assistance from the program.

He credits SC APEX for assisting ERFM in obtaining the awarded contract from the United States Forest Service. “SC APEX helped us create a capabilities statement and helped us to understand the contracts in detail,” Olson said.

Jobs were generated from the contract. “I have worked two forest service contracts this month already in region 8” Olson said.

CRANK Marketing Group LLC contacted SC APEX Accelerator in the summer of 2022 to learn about state contracting opportunities.
“Our SC APEX Procurement Counselor, Ashley Duwel, recommended that we focus our contracting efforts at the SC state level since we were a new company that needed past performance in order to compete effectively at the federal level,” CRANK Marketing Group CEO Cynthia Newman said.

CRANK utilized SC APEX’s Bid Match system, which alerted them to contract opportunities. “Bid Match has been instrumental in helping us filter out potential solicitations because it is tailored to CRANK Marketing Group LLC’s specific needs … We’ve won 5 state contracts with South Carolina.”
CRANK Marketing Group has been awarded $1,177,896 from the five state contracts.
CRANK Marketing Group has three primary areas of concentration in their Contracting Division: Professional Services (which includes all Marketing Services – both online & offline), Environmental Services, and Construction Services.
“Our teaming partners augment our capabilities, train our staff and transfer knowledge to our team. Winning and performing successfully on these contracts gives us the experience, capabilities, and skill level, we need to be competitive and become a better partner with the Department of Defense in the future,” Newman said.

Valkyrie Tactical Solutions is a veteran owned and operated business whose mission is to provide training, leadership development, functional fitness and team building for their customers.
Business owner Thomas Tardo initially contacted SC APEX Accelerators for bidding assistance.
“I was lost and overwhelmed with the bidding process. In search of help, I went to SC APEX for assistance.” Tardo said.
Valkyrie Tactical Solutions specializes in Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC), K9 TECC, LEO TECC, Active Shooter training, CPR AED First Aid and Tactical Breacher training.
In May, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) awarded Valkyrie Tactical Solutions with a $25,000 contract to provide Active Shooter Training.
“We will be teaching Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC), ASHER, and Unified Command to help prepare the agency for responding to Active Threats.
Tardo credits SC APEX for assisting with the bidding process, and specifically with the requirements for the bid that Valkyrie Tactical Solutions was awarded from the DLA.
Jobs were retained because of this contract as Tardo is taking a team of three employees to California to fulfill the contract.

Veronique Sarad owns and operates a full-service travel agency that handles the hassle of trip planning for her clients. Travel The World LLC focuses on assisting corporate and government organizations with their lodging and travel needs. Sarad takes charge of the entire process from research to negotiation and travel support.

Sarad came to SC APEX for assistance with System for Award Management (SAM) to ensure she was entering her information correctly. “This was completely new territory for me. I worked as a subcontractor last year but had not submitted any offers as a prime contractor before,” Sarad said.

Sarad was recently awarded $43,709.88 to provide Hotel and Lodging Services for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Her SC APEX counselor assisted her with applying for the contract, “She answered my questions regarding information I wanted and needed to submit. She is always very prompt and has valuable insight.”

Sarad also notes that working with her counselor helped to prepare her for this and future opportunities.

“My counselor has been answering my questions for months. This means I have been gaining knowledge from her that has helped me prepare my offer independently. She has reviewed past offers, given me feedback and has made suggestions repeatedly.”

Chanting Hemphill signed up with SC APEX Accelerator for System For Award Management (SAM) assistance for Triple C Rebar. He also wanted to learn more about the government contracting process, specifically bidding.

“SC APEX helped me in understanding the bidding process and what needed to be submitted. There were times when I needed assistance immediately because of time-sensitive documents and SC APEX was there to always assist me. Because of the amount of the contract there were several documents that needed to be submitted that I was not familiar with but with SC APEX’s knowledge and guidance I was able to secure the contract.”

Triple C Rebar was awarded contracts totaling nearly $5 million dollars with the South Carolina Department of Transportation to install rebar for bridge replacement. Jobs were generated and retained from the contract.

Crawford, a marketing and branding agency, needed assistance attaining its Women Owned Small Business certification.

After hearing about SC APEX Accelerators from the South Carolina Department of Commerce, Crawford Senior Vice President Allison Mertins reached out to SC APEX as a potential resource.

“I initially sought out SC APEX because I thought they would be a good resource for our woman-owned business. After speaking with Scott Dobereiner, my SC APEX counselor, I realized that he would be able to help me with my SBA Woman-owned certification. I had been challenged in the past with it. Also, Scott mentioned that DUNs was being replaced with Unique IDs, so I was able to take care of that quickly and easily.”

Crawford was alerted to a Request For Proposal (RFP) from the Bid Match Service with SC APEX and was awarded a $70,000 contract for the State of Vermont to provide CVFiber with marketing and communications support.

Two positions were added to Crawford because of the contract.

“We added a new Account Supervisor and Digital Media Strategist to help cover this account.”

I.T. Phalanx’s CEO Charline Perry was awarded a $24,000 contract from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs for Information Technology services. Perry says that SC APEX counselors assisted her through the entire process – from the solicitation to the award.

“Mrs. Ashley Duwel and Mr. Ron Conner helped me by answering all the many questions I had about the solicitation,” Perry said.

She also mentioned receiving help with wording her emails when she had questions for the customer.

“They helped by providing guidance on bid pricing and being more confident in communicating with my customer with the information I needed to know. They helped me through the hurdles that I initially faced and helped me overcome those.”

Perry says that because of the assistance she received from SC APEX she is confident in moving forward with the process in the future.

“They helped me better understand, and I can communicate the bid process more efficiently and effectively.”

Coast to Coast Custom Mobile Vending founder Tyler Hagan went from running a food truck, to building them.

“After running my own food truck, I realized there was good money to be made by actually building trailers and trucks for like businesses or restaurants and schools. We have a private industry focus for restaurants, schools, and country clubs.”

His company’s focus turned to looking at government contracting.

“Government contracting is basically the same – trying to sell trucks and trailers to agencies. Food trucks, mobile housing – there’s a lot of different options.”

Tyler knew he would need assistance to pursue government contracting. A google search led him to PTAC SC (now SC APEX Accelerators). After signing up, he was assigned counselor Ashley Duwel.

“Ashley helped us from our first step, we understood what to do, and how things work much faster and easier.  Overall – I think Ashley has been instrumental in helping us learn the contracting space, from our first meetings.  We won a contract with the DLA /NAVSEA as well.”

Coast to Coast’s contracts with U.S. Fish and Game and USACE totaled to approximately $40,000.