By Debbie Gregory.

There are no limits on who can become a great entrepreneur. If you fancy yourself an entrepreneur, odds are you already have the drive, but, you might not know where to start. Launching a business takes planning, decision making, goal setting and action. So before you jump into self-employment, here are a few key questions to ask yourself.

What is my talent and who is my customer? Whether you are offering goods or services, make sure you are offering a solution people are looking for and are willing to pay for. Write up a business plan, which will serve as a roadmap to your success. Maintain your focus and don’t try to be all things to all customers. Your target market is the ideal client looking for what you have to offer.

Do I have the discipline it takes to make it as a business owner? Are you disciplined enough to report for duty, even on the days when the sun is shining and the temptation to play hooky is strong. Being your own boss often means working longer and harder than you would if you were an employee. Success in business requires passion, a lot of hard work, staying power and drive.

Can I assemble a team that will help drive my business success? You can’t go at it alone; a team will help you build and grow your business. Even if you plan to be a sole proprietor, you’ll probably need an outside support team to keep you focused and on track. These people may include a lawyer, accountant, sales rep, web developer, etc.

How will I finance the business? Your business plan should give you an idea of how much funding you will need to cover not only your startup costs but also ongoing expenses before you are generating a profit. Evaluate your options, including business credit cards, lines of credit, vendor credit, a business loan, or a combination of these sources.

Congratulations to Halfaker and Associates, LLC on the $10M VA Software Engineering Support Services Revenue Cycle Management contract award.

The technology solutions provider received the award under the Department of Veteran Affairs’ (VA) Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation (T4NG) contract vehicle. Halfaker will work with VA’s Office of Community Care (OCC) Revenue Operations (RO) to improve user experience and the quality of Veteran-facing systems by providing project management, requirements analysis, design, development, integration, and testing focused on the Accounts Receivable (AR), Integrated Billing (IB) modules of Veterans Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), Consolidate Billing Statement System (CBSS), and Veterans Billing Statement System (VBS). The SE RCM task is a two-year, $10M program that will support VA’s OCC Revenue Operations.

Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Halfaker was founded by Army veteran Dawn Halfaker, who also serves as the company’s CEO.

“As the OCC RO continues to assess, monitor and drive VHA compliance with healthcare regulatory requirements, the systems that enable these operations must continuously mature and evolve in a rapid and scalable manner,” said Ms. Halfaker. “We are ready to support VA’s OCC RO in every aspect of enhancing critical VistA modules so that they can continue to serve our Veterans.”

With a track record of strong VA customer relationships and outstanding performance across large, enterprise-level modernization programs, Halfaker delivers feature-driven agile development, leveraging automated build, test, and deployment processes to guarantee rapid, reliable, timely, and high-quality software releases. Halfaker leverages diverse teams to conduct operations and achieve all program objectives in adherence to VA’s Veteran-focused Integration Process (VIP) guidelines. Their cloud technology experts engineer customer-centric solutions by adapting the latest tools, standards and techniques to meet the client’s strategic goals, modernize mission-critical applications, reduce backend risks, and increase scalability for future optimization.

By Debbie Gregory.

The U.S. Army is looking for ideas on how to develop a non-lethal weapon capable of knocking out remote weapon stations on enemy vehicles without endangering nearby civilians.

Instead of blowing up hostile armored vehicles and the surrounding city block, the Army wants to have the ability to disable them by using nonlethal force, keeping civilian housing, hospitals, schools, mosques safe, avoiding the strong negative sociopolitical ramifications should they be attacked in the normal manner.

“The sociopolitical ramifications of collateral damage, especially the type of damage that can be inflicted with traditional anti-armor assets, have made it increasingly difficult for the dismounted soldier to engage lightly armored vehicles,” according to an April 20 solicitation.

The April 20th solicitation was posted on a government website for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which is designed to encourage small business to engage in federal research and development.

Remote weapon stations, or RWS, are “often highly instrumented to provide vision, range finding as well as weapon stabilization,” the Army explains. “If the instrumentation can be blinded or the stabilization destroyed, they become far less dangerous to the dismounted soldier and the civilian population as a whole. If the entire electronics of the RWS can be disrupted, even basic traversing and firing functions become disabled.”

The solicitation, which closed to submissions June 20, suggests another soft spot, targeting a vehicle’s mobility, such as its engine. “It is imperative that these mechanisms are not viewed as lethal to bystanders,” the Army says.

The armor disablement weapon also needs to have enough range (more than a hundred yards) to keep dismounted U.S. soldiers far away enough from heavily armed vehicles. Other specifications include less than five pounds in weight, the ability to disable a vehicle in less than five minutes, and capable of targeting buildings.

Be sure to visit https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/110372/vamboa to hear VAMBOA founder and CEO Debbie Gregory interviewed by Gary Ray Bugnacki on the American Heroes Network.

By Debbie Gregory.

The U.S. Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin Corp. have reached an $11.5 billion deal for 141 F-35 stealth fighter jets that brings the aircraft to its lowest price in program history.

Most of the jets are for the U.S. military, and others are for a number of allied countries.

The $11.5 billion contract is for 102 A-variant of the stealth fighter jet used by the Air Force, 25 of the B-variant used by the Marine Corps, and 14 of the C-variant used by the Navy. The prices will come in at 5 to 11 percent less than previous rates.

“Driving down cost is critical to the success of this program,” Vice Adm. Mat Winter, the F-35 program executive officer, said in the statement. “We are delivering on our commitment to get the best price for taxpayers and warfighters.”

The Navy will see the biggest price drop under the deal. The 14 new aircraft-carrier variants of the Lightning II will cost $107.7 million each — an 11.1 percent drop from the $121.2 million price tag on the last batch.

The Marine Corps will see a 5.7 percent drop on its short-takeoff and landing variant, down  from the $122.4 million under the last deal. The Air Force’s savings come in at a 5.4 percent decrease.

The White House has been critical of the F-35 program for delays and cost overruns, but the price per jet has declined as production increased. The price of the last batch of F-35A’s in 2017 cost 7 percent less than the previous jet order.

Prices should continue to fall, as Lockheed ramps up production to meet the military’s requirements in coming years.

The F-35 program is aiming to expand the fleet to more than 3,000 jets and bring the unit price of the F-35A closer to $80 million in 2020 through efficiencies gained by ordering in larger quantifies.