OUR STORY

In late 2012 and after years of successfully completing Federal and State contracts, Mr. King was disappointed in the fact that he had not been awarded any contracts with corporations.  Knowing that under Federal law if a corporation had a contract with the Federal government that they could be required to submit a sub-contracting plan that included Minority, Women and Veteran owned businesses, he wanted to know why in most cases Veteran owned businesses were not being included. 

Mr. King was advised to contact the supplier diversity managers at the corporations to find the answer to his concerns.  Being in Michigan, he reached out to the “Detroit 3” (GM, Ford, Chrysler) and Kellogg’s each of whom had a long successful history of supplier diversity programs.  Their answer was direct and simple – they would not contract with Veteran owned businesses until “you veterans create a certification program that meets our corporate standards”.  Not knowing what that really meant,Mr. King was directed to the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council (MMSDC) and the Great Lakes Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).  Both organizations were willing to teach Mr. King and his team their certification methods.

As 2013 began, Mr. King made the decision to suspend operations of his company, Keith King and Associates, and focus on the development of a certification program for veteran owned businesses.  He also began to recruit his Officers: Brigadier General (ret) Richard Miller, Richard White, Joe Sternburg and Guido Capaldi were the first to join him.  Being good military men, they immediately began to write the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) based on what they were learning from the Women and Minority groups. 

They filed with the IRS to apply for their 501(c)3 non-profit status.  The business plan was written.  By-laws were created.   A lawyer was hired. They secured their business name and website address.  The National Veteran Business Development Council (NVBDC) was taking shape. The search then began to find veteran business owners who would be willing to submit their documentation to the NVBDC to become certified at stringent, corporate best practice standards. 

In April 2014, NVBDC completed their Certification process testing in conjunction with representatives from GM, Ford, Chrysler, Kellogg’s, WBENC, NMSDC, VetBizCentral (VBOC), the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Receiving their collective approval, NVBDC launched its certification program while it worked on completing its on-line certification program-released nationally in June 2015.   A few weeks after their successful beta-test NVBDC received their official notice from the IRS that their 501(c)3 status was granted.  The NVBDC was officially born and became operational In April 2014.

For more information, read the NVBDC White Paper.