August 8, 2023 • 29 mins
In his 35-year career he pioneered successful approaches supporting clients in software migrations across various major platforms before working exclusively in the government contracting industry with Deltek Costpoint supporting the companies who serve our nation. His government cost accounting experience includes the design, migration, and administration of government contract accounting job cost systems with an extensive background in compliance. In addition to a vast business acumen which lead to the founding and success of PDS he supports clients in contract negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital funding, corporate restructuring, and business turnarounds.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky in Business Administration, graduate work in accounting and finance at the University of Tennessee and holds a Certified Financial Planner Certificate from the University of Tennessee. Prior to co-founding PDS Consulting Solutions with his partner Laura Davis, he ran a successful consulting business for over 10 years implementing Deltek Costpoint while providing other essential business services for small to medium size emerging companies. He is experienced, trusted and sought after by industry leaders due to the reputation he has built steadily over time in consulting and business development while working with innovative and cutting-edge thought professionals throughout his career.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky in Business Administration, graduate work in accounting and finance at the University of Tennessee and holds a Certified Financial Planner Certificate from the University of Tennessee. Prior to co-founding PDS Consulting Solutions with his partner Laura Davis, he ran a successful consulting business for over 10 years implementing Deltek Costpoint while providing other essential business services for small to medium size emerging companies. He is experienced, trusted and sought after by industry leaders due to the reputation he has built steadily over time in consulting and business development while working with innovative and cutting-edge thought professionals throughout his career.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
M ANDT Bank presents CEOs you shouldKnow powered by iHeartMedia. Let's meet Kenneth
Parsons. He is the founder andCEO for pd AS Consulting Solutions. While
based in Knoxville, works in thegov count space domestically and specializes in ARP
implementations. As an exclusive provider ofDeltech cost Point, they also host cost
(00:21):
Point in AWS gov cloud I taR space. Before we talk more about
Kenneth's company, I first asked himto talk a little bit about himself,
where he's from and his origin story. I grew up. I was born
in Louisville, Kentucky. I grewup in southeastern Kentucky and went to the
University of Kentucky and college undergrad beforein business before moving to Knoxville, Tennessee,
(00:44):
which is where another group is from. And went to University of Tennessee
and concentrated in finance. So spentformative years there bouncing between the right on
the state line there between Kentucky andTennessee, between Louisville, Lexington and Knoxville.
Kenneth love of our listeners, andI'm a big sports fan, and
I know you know this, butmy goodness, you were spoiled with some
good basketball and football in your collegeyears. My goodness, So you got
(01:08):
the right color on with your shirtto that band and I the other.
I have the other. I knowyou can't see it, but I have
the I have blue on. ButI grew up in a family that was
clearly divided because we were there onthe state line. But I've been grad
obviously Kentucky basketball and for a lotof years there Tennessee football, So it
depended on who was playing, youknow, between each other and a lot
(01:30):
of friendly family rival we're going on. But yes, you're correct, especially
Kentucky basketball. So for all ourCEOs and leaders out there, see you
know, if you go to twoschools, whoever's winning at the time.
Kenneth, this goes and hops onthat bandwagon. That's ow it rolls.
Well. Listen, we are hereto talk a lot about PDS consulting solutions.
I'd love to ask our leaders aboutthat idea. And I know what's
(01:51):
going on a couple of decades nowthat you came up with this with your
co founder and your co owner,but I'd love to hear about the idea
that epiphany you said, you knowwhat I've got this idea, there's a
hole in the industry. I thinkwe can fill it up. Tell us
about that. It was very interesting. I started out after I graduated from
University of Tennessee, actually started workingpart time before I did that. Then
(02:13):
I was working on kind of dualdegrees there. I've got degrees in finance,
but also you know, finance andaccounting all very mathematical, so as
music, so I also trained invocal performance. While I was there,
I was fortunate to work with anartist in residence from the met at the
time in classical of vocal training.But during the time there, I was
(02:34):
working part time with a small companyin oak Ridge that was a eventually Knoxville.
It's the Knoxville oak Ridge area,and the company was a minority owned
business that was in the Small Businesseight A program and they were in the
process of graduating from that program.So they had a lot of systems that
they needed put in place. SoI was brought in as an assistant to
(02:57):
the controller at the time, andwe actually implemented a couple of accounting systems.
But at that point in time,in the mid eighties, Deltech,
who we are a premiere partner withthere in the Herndon area. We're based
in Knoxville, but the Herndon areaobviously a hotbed the Beltway with Deltech.
We were very familiar with it andbought their original package that they came out
(03:22):
with, which will System one thatwas a financial ARP geared toward government contractors.
And I've stayed there at that companyfor eight years, left there as
the controller, and those were reallymy formative years, I guess more than
anything. I'm still very close friendswith the family that owned that company.
They're a Filipino family that are inKnoxville and grew a very successful company there.
(03:46):
But they let me wear multiple hats. I mean, one day we
were building buildings, I may bepulling cable coax cable to connect our internet.
Inside the business, I may becleaning the toilet one day that I
be stopped up, and the nextmorning I might be on a plane flying
to Charlotte to sit down in abordering to meet with our bank. You
know. So I had multiple hats, which was the best training that I
(04:09):
had. I worked in not onlythe accounting side as assistant controller, but
I managed their insurance programs worldwide.They were based. They had contracts all
over the world managed the obviously theIT and the computer system for the financial
system, which really led to myfoundation with working with government contractors. So
(04:30):
I left that company and went totallycommercial for about five years with a company
that they built precipitators on smokestacks forcompanies in the paper mills and so we
at that company, it was stillaccounting and I was working on Jdever's people
Soft Oracle Financials, and then eventuallyworked with a company out of Boston with
the bankruptcy court there to help companiesstay away from bankruptcy. So I got
(04:54):
a lot of experience with a lotof arps. But during that time,
Deltech rewrote their program completely and putit put it out in an a beta
site testing for quite a few companiesthat are in the GovCon arena. I
was fortunate to have friends that werefamiliar with it and pulled me back into
that community to be a beta sitewith Delta cost Point, which is the
(05:16):
program that we implement today. Soduring the during the mid to late nineties,
basically worked with a consulting firm mypartner and I did where we were
implementing that software and a few otherpackages, and at the same time,
we were seeing the you know,the opportunity there for our own business to
specialize just in that specific software.And you know a lot of people through
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years have always said, well,after you did that, you know,
you put all your eggs in onebasket. But the gov con industry deltach
in particular delta cost points as there'sa big that's a big basket with the
with the growth and all that's therein that industry, especially in the defense
and aerospace industry. So around twothousand, two thousand and one, my
(06:03):
partner and I at the time thatwe were working together, she's a CPA,
in my background is heavily concentrated infinance and accounting degrees in finance.
We decided to go after the partnershipswith Deltech and form our own businesses to
provide these services that we had basicallybeen providing independently but also at a consulting
(06:25):
firm. And that from that pointin time is when we saw I guess,
the market not only for implementation servicesthat were there. And as time
went on to the mid two thousands, it was really before people really started
hearing about the cloud, but wehad a client that came to us that
had won a large government contract andthey really had no way to host the
(06:48):
software, and they had a quickstartup and a quick turnaround, and so
we had excess capacity and our fileservice, so we actually got into hosting
the software for the client and thatbasically is how the business got started and
started growing. And it's from thatpoint of time we've grown to where we
(07:08):
work with very small businesses up tobusinesses that do hundreds of millions of dollars
a year in revenue and have thousandsof employees. So it's a it's a
software that basically is scalable and worksfor all size industry today, which basically
has benefited us in the long runas far as the growth of our business
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overall. But that really was theimpetus is the focus on helping small businesses
grow, become large businesses and bethere to support them with their growth,
and that's where we saw the opportunity. Well, thank you for sharing all.
Then, before we get into everythingthat is PDS Consulting Solutions, you
really struck my attention when you startedto talk about your resume and doing all
(07:51):
those different kinds of jobs and wearingthe hats. And the reason why I
bring this up is because this isa common theme in our series. And
I talk about this with my daughter, who's a rising senior in college and
she's a Cinema and Television arts major. She wants to be a director,
but you have to know what everybodyelse is doing on the set. There's
hundreds of people. And I toldher my advice was to do as much
(08:13):
as you can do lighting, doaudio, be a PA, do the
gaff, the boomer, everything.So when you're a director, you know
what everybody else is doing. That'sthe better way to lead. And it
sounds like what you did and allthose different jobs and all those different hats
got to the experience where you couldbe a great leader someday. Would I
be correct in that? That's exactlyright. And that's when I do speak
(08:35):
and when I talked to college studentsand even you know, my own family,
same thing you're doing there. That'sthe best advice you can give them.
And I was very fortunate. Ididn't realize that, you know,
right at the beginning when I wasdoing that, you know, especially when
I was crawling through tunnels trying topull cable to wire an office, and
then you know, then the accountinggroup would call and say, hey,
our bathroom was stopped up. Canyou unplug then stop the toilet, you
(09:00):
know. And then literally I'm notI'm not kidding, literally after that had
happened, because we were building abuilding. The next morning, one morning
literally was on a jet to youknow, to Charlotte from Knoxville to meet
with our bank on our revision ofour credit line. You know. So
one day you're in jeans or cutoffs, in a T shirt, and
the next morning you're in a timeand then a suit heading. You know.
So it was the best experience Ipossibly could have ever been given.
(09:20):
And that's what I tell people todaywhen I talk, you know, to
groups or just one on one tryingto do everything. Because if you if
your goal is you want to ownyour own business and run your own business,
at some point in time, youneed to be able to wear all
the hats. And that's been probablyfor me the best thing to and I
(09:45):
guess really, you know, thegovernment contracting community is one of those you
look at Y two K, youlook at the housing bubble, you look
at all that goes on stock marketcrashes, that government contracting goes right on.
That doesn't mean that you still haveto deal and weather with you know,
weather the peaks and valleys and youknow, in a business situation.
(10:05):
So if you've been through all thatand you've done all of that at a
point in time, you're not afraidor you're not you're you know, you're
always looking out, especially when youhave employees dependent upon you. You're always
looking down the line making sure thatthe business is there and that you've got
your popeline and your backlogs solid.But with that, because of that experience
of doing everything at an early pointin time, it really gives you,
(10:30):
I guess, the foundation to beable to feel like that you can get
through what's going on at the time. So kiddos and future CEOs, if
you walk in a person choose fora day, we have a better understanding
when you're a leader some day.That's well, that's what Kenneth and they're
talking about. All right, Welllet's talk about PDS consulting solutions, and
let's we're going to get into theweeds in just a second about gov con
and although you do for your clientsand what you do, because I really
(10:52):
want to educate our listeners that areintroduced to you and your company for the
first time, Kenneth, But whatis the mission statement? So our mission
really and it started out it's kindof evolved through the years, but it
basically is about supporting that community.But you know, our main tagline obviously
is supporting the companies who serve ournation, but it goes beyond that where
(11:15):
you know, really, as asyou're asking me early on, there the
reason and that I guess the partof the business that we enjoy in my
partner and I'm probably our team toenjoy the most is working with small companies
that have just started out just growingand you know, maybe had been you
(11:35):
know, within another large company,but had an opportunity to spend off with
a contract and get started on theirown. To help them grow and to
support them in their growth, andalso to feel like, you know,
we're supporting the nation along the waywith the with the clients that are working
across the board. From security,we work with firms that that provide security
(11:58):
on all of our bases across theworld. We work with obviously defense and
aerospace community, and a lot ofit is just you know, base off
services, meaning that some of ourclients just go in and maintain the basis
from the point of view of cuttinggrass from maintaining buildings, you know.
So along those lines, we feellike that this business is doing something also
(12:20):
for the country. Kenneth, let'sdo this. If somebody that's listening to
this interview was introduced to PDS ConsultingSolutions for the first time, what's the
pitch? What do you do foryour clients? So the first thing we
do, I guess the pitch fromthat point of view, But when we're
talking with a prospective client, rightout of the box is looking because we're
(12:41):
all financial people. My team ismade up of former they're all industry people
before they became implementers. So it'sall basically accounting backgrounds, financial controllers,
supply chain, manufacturing managers, projectcontrol people. So the main thing that
we want to do is come inand help them with their business processes,
because business processes from the get go, you know, when you're you're swimming
(13:05):
upstream, when you're coming out andstarting a new business and all of your
you know, and it's the samething even with me, you know,
you still today, I still wearmultiple hats, even in even in our
office. There At times there's thingsthat come up. I may you know,
I'm may be trying to fix adoor that's got a squeaky hinge on
it. You know, those arethe kind of things that you're as an
(13:26):
owner and an operator everything. It'snot only cash flow, it's not it's
not only you know, helping theemployees and your implementation team understand what they're
doing for the clients, but you'rebasically doing that same thing for your clients
to help them get their business processesin place so that they can grow and
so that they don't have to spendall of their time trying to manage it.
(13:50):
You get systems in place, policiesand procedures in place that can basically
take on the life of their own. You know, as we were getting
to know you in the green room, you said something that struck my attention.
And I want to talk about acouple different points if I could,
just for a moment, and onewas that you were already in the cloud.
But when COVID came aboard, whilethat changed everything. And I've talked
to a lot of CEOs and leaderswhen COVID happened, as challenging as it
(14:13):
was, there had to be amajor league pivot done, and I imagine
you had to do one as well, even though the cloud was there at
your grasp. But now fully asyou move into twenty twenty two twenty twenty
three, I found out a lotof businesses not only did the pivot,
but they got better and smarter becauseof that. Maybe you could allude to
us about just that transition over thatthree year period about what happened to the
(14:35):
company. Definitely, you know,as we were talking there, we were
already obviously in the cloud, butwe still had clients that were on prem
meaning that they had their systems hostedon premise on their own servers. So
a lot of times, a lotof that first year of COVID were helping
clients that weren't in the cloud,that had to go home and work but
(14:58):
couldn't reach their systems. So butthat was one of the things I guess,
you know right off the bat thatfor us as a company was an
easy transition. That even though andwe still have our corporate office, and
we'll still keep our corporate office,it's basically used as a as a floating
office right now to come in whenwhen we meet with clients. But what
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we're seeing now with a lot ofour clients that did not have and we
did have a work from home kindof set up before COVID anyway, and
just the nature of the work,a lot of our clients did not have
that. And so one in particulartold me through the process about a year
into the process, when they hadto go home, they realized that work
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from home really worked for them,and that their their team, their employees,
and even some of their contractors weremore productive at home. And you
know, a lot of times,when you think about it, you know,
you're in a large office with alot of people, people stopped by
your door, You get in,the conversation takes you ten minutes to get
back into what you were doing again, you know, so at home they're
working. And I think probably twoa lot of people, even though the
(16:07):
great resignation was taking place during thattime, a lot of people were concerned
about holding onto their jobs and theywere working harder from home. But a
lot of companies, i think realizedthat worked for them. Secondly, it's
really in the long run, hascut back their overhead from all the office
space they've had. But we werefortunate at pds in that regard that we
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were a lot of what we didwas already in the cloud. Even the
probably the year before COVID hit,we did two probably three large implementations that
the only time I was on theclient's side was to sign the contract.
The implementation was done remotely. Allthe training was done via zoom or go
to meeting portals that were there.It went very smoothly, so it was
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an easy transition for us during COVIDwhen everyone did have to go home.
Not the same case for a lotof our clients and the manufacturing, as
I said, where you need peoplethat've got to be on the shop floor,
right, But a lot of theteams, especially the admin and accounting
teams we experienced, those were ableto quickly transition to work from home and
(17:21):
plan to probably stay there, maybego back into the office a couple of
days. But basically that's where theworld is today, I think, and
is going to continue going that way. Well, Kenneth, I'm glad you
brought that up because that brings usto our second question. And I always
like to ask our leaders and CEOsabout how do you manage your staff?
They're spread all over the United States, and you're doing probably domestic, and
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you know, all these different kindsof pipelines that you're in and all these
different tentacles making sure that there's agood work life balance for all of your
staff employees, but also making surethat they're doing what you want them to
do. So how do you dothat remotely and effectively? So that you
know, that's a very good question, and a lot of that goes back,
you know, specifically within pds,with the nature of professionals that are
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there within the company. And youknow, I think most people know,
you know, accountants, a lotof people have the typical accounting view of
an accountant or the typical personality viewof an accountant, but also financial people
and project control people, those kindof things, and so the work ethic
is there really when they come in. So we have project lead, we
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have different leads that are there.Like I obviously overall my main focus as
a CEO as business development, keepingthe business running and keeping business coming in.
But with that also with all ofour projects and all of our clients,
always in there as a program manager, and I actually sit down at
times and actually still work in thesoftware, not only to keep my skills
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up, but just because there's certainareas within the software that for thirty thirty
five years that I've dealt with,specifically actually in government contracting and helping clients
negotiate their contracts and work with helpthem develop their indirect rates for building their
overheads and their GENA rates. Sothat portion of the software I actually still
(19:14):
work in a lot of times withmy team. But with that we have
an f and a team of financingaccounting team, so I have a project
lead there. And as I mentionedearlier, these resources, you know,
a lot of times with the costpoint expertise are hard to find that they're
either in industry or they are withanother partner working as an implementer. So
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a lot of the team I've workedwith for twenty or twenty five years that
are that are with me at PDSand so they I've got leads that are
there. As I mentioned for financeand accounting, I've got the materials and
manufacturing lead. Of course, Ihave a controller in the company that's over
our accounting office, and then wehave an IT team manager that manages the
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IT staff that handles all of ourall of the hosting and all of the
you know, day to day operationsand maintenance of the systems to keep them
running. So having the right Iguess key people in place for those managers
are is the way today I thinkremotely that you know most companies obviously you've
had to go to if not,if not that they were there already.
(20:18):
And my takeaway Kenneth is you havea trusted team, You've vetted them out
properly. You've also, yeah,you've trained them properly. Here are your
marching orders, go get them.So that makes a lot of sense and
that's good leadership. I did wantto ask you about differentiating yourself and I
don't want to assume that there's anothercompany does exactly what you do, but
when it comes to competition out there, how do you differentiate yourself as suddenly
(20:40):
battling for the same contract. Soit's very interesting in the industry that we're
in, especially the you know,the gov com community. Like I said,
it's very small. Do you addDeltech cost Point or Deltech World to
that, it even gets smaller.And there's a whole partner group that we're
part of at Deltech as a premierpartner with Deltech. It's the same thing
(21:00):
with our ABS partnership, but specificallythe core businesses cost point ARP implementations.
But what sets us aside. Onething I think is our experienced team and
just as you mentioned, you know, having a professional team that I have
there, that I've worked with foryears and being able to trust them.
Secondly, I think one of thethings that we do we through the years,
(21:26):
I guess probably most I guess intentlyover the past fifteen years, have
focused on manufacturing companies, and sothat's kind of a niche within the Delta
cost point ARP implementation world is havingmanufacturing expertise, not just someone that can
implement the system, but someone thatcomes from industry that knows how a shop
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floor works, knows how supply chainworks. So that sets us apart with
the team that I have in particular, I think the other part of it
is is that we are a companythat focuses very highly on training and right
from the get go when we startan implementation. And we actually just did
(22:10):
a kick off with a large companyyesterday that we're going to be implementing,
and I think one of the thingsthat they told us from the start when
we were talking to them that Iguess set US aside was that they liked
our training approach and that I thinkthose three areas having the key people,
having great people on your team,the kind of the specialization there within the
(22:34):
manufacturing, defense and aerospace community withindelta cost point, and then obviously the
training approach I think sets us aside. Kenneth, I know, when you're
running a company is basically for thelast couple of decades that it's not always
unicorns and rainbows all the time.And you're a successful company. But with
all that said, what are thecurrent challenges that presented to you in the
(22:55):
industry right now? Well, theinteresting thing, you know, it's like
I said earlier, you know,guvcon community or the gucon industry, regardless
of what's going on in the overalleconomy or the country, you know,
stock market bubbles, real estate whatever, whatever what have you. There,
government contracting continues to go on.That doesn't mean there's not peaks and valleys,
(23:17):
and we've definitely seen peaks and valleysand a lot of valleys over the
last couple of years with the government, and we're all kind of watching our
phones and today even watching for theyou know, for the debt ceiling agreement,
so that impacts our contractors, andso a lot of over the past
couple of years, especially during COVIDwhen a lot of money went to COVID
relief, which was great, butyou know, there's a lot of things
(23:40):
that have taken the budget away fromgovernment contractors where they have one our contents
of one contracts and they've gotten theircontract awards, but they actually haven't gotten
their mods to their contracts, theirmodifications where they've gotten their funding. So
they know they've got a contract,but they don't have funding. So that's
been something that within our business thatwe have always we've got sustaining support,
(24:03):
clients that we know, continuing support, sustaining support that basically take us through
the peaks and valleys. But oneof the biggest challenges really has been the
past two years with the government andwith the you know, the threat of
recession and also this especially right now, this debt ceiling agreement. Kenneth,
we know when we talk to ourCEOs and our leaders and our owners of
(24:26):
companies that they're tireless workers, theyhave passion, but also there's a little
bit of time when you're not sleeping, when you get a little little shut
I after running a company that there'ssome time for a philanthropic and charity thing
that that people like to do.And whether it's with the company, with
PDS consulting solutions, or with yourselfand your family, what do you like
to be part of, So youknow, probably three different areas. They're
(24:48):
personally involved in music and obviously trainedin music, so give back in the
music community where I can, andwith church and other philanthropic events. Secondly,
probably within the business and personally too. This is where it kind of
crosses over. I live on thecoast in South Carolina most of the time,
(25:08):
bounced back and forth between here andin Knoxville, Tennessee, where our
corporate office is. But basically Igrew up in the mountains of Kentucky.
But I'm an ocean person, sowe really Jennifer and I try to work
with there's a couple of organizations forocean in particular that does clean ups with
plastic in the ocean. Try tosupport that personally and within the company.
(25:30):
It's really they don't call themselves acharity and you can't really donate to them,
but there's other ways to sponsor them. And then thirdly, we through
the years have always just because ofthe GovCon community and a lot of our
co workers and people that you know, we team within clients are veterans and
you know they have come out andform veteran owned businesses, so we support
(25:53):
We do get confused at times.There's a lot of PDS companies out in
the country. I didn't know thatwhen we first incorporated twenty something years ago
and we were doing the state youknow, going with the Secretary of State
to check out the names and allthat. We didn't realize at the time
how many PDS companies are out there. So there's another company that makes we
(26:15):
get confused with a lot which we'renot. It's a company called PDS Consultants
that makes glasses for the veterans there. It's a company that they're actually they're
based in Louisville, Kentucky. Sothere's a lot of confusion there sometimes with
us because we're an accounting software implementationright but we do and because of our
(26:36):
work with supporting veterans events, especiallyin Knoxville, and we go to some
of their conferences where we exhibit.So that's another area where we try to
focus our time and support that community. That's wonderful. Thanks for sharing well.
As we put a ball in ourconversation, Kenneth. And if somebody
once again has been introduced to PDSConsulting Solutions for the very first time,
(26:56):
and you want to leave them withone takeaway, what would it be?
For the most part, I thinkyou know, the biggest takeaway with us
is that we're going to deliver foryou with your implementation and make sure that
our goal as a partner with delTech obviously and being in the top tier
(27:18):
with them as a premier partner,is evangelization of the software. And that's
why I put PDS into an exclusivepartnership with Deltech years ago, where that's
the only software that we implement.So I want to make sure at the
end of the day that your implementationis successful for you and you're a happy
cost point customer. So that's themain thing from the beginning of any conversations
(27:45):
that we have, regardless of whatthe clients are going through at the time,
we want to make sure that youknow that's especially in the I T
world and in the implementation world.I'm sure you've heard it. Everybody knows
that garbage and garbage out you don'tset the system up properly, and you
don't bring experience to the table toset the system up properly, and they're
not going to have a good takeaway. So our goal, and I think
(28:07):
my reputation, our company's reputation,and my former partner who's retired her reputation
too, has been to make surethat our clients are happy with not only
our work, but with the systemthat we leave them with. Well said,
So, if anybody wants to possiblypartner up with you, I know
you're looking for some more people.There could be some career opportunities, or
they just want to check out alittle bit more. What's the website,
(28:29):
Urel, So it is PDS Consultsdot com. So that's PDS www dot
PDS. So the name came fromParsons David Parsons Davis Services, so that's
my last name. My partner's lastname was Laura Davis and then services.
So PDS C O N s ULTS dot com, Kenneth, it has
(28:52):
been a tree to talk to you. I can tell you how much we
appreciate your time because we know howbusy you are. But continue success and
thank you so very much for joiningus on CEO as you should know.
Thank you, Dennis, we appreciateit, thank you for having us,
and thank you to M and TBank, our community partner. M ANDT
Bank supports CEOs you should know aspart of their ongoing commitment to building strong
communities, and that starts by backingthe businesses within them. As a bank
(29:15):
for communities, M and T believesin dedicating time, talent, and resources
to help local businesses thrive because whenbusinesses succeed, our communities succeed
M ANDT Bank presents CEOs you shouldKnow powered by iHeartMedia. Let's meet Kenneth
Parsons. He is the founder andCEO for pd AS Consulting Solutions. While
based in Knoxville, works in thegov count space domestically and specializes in ARP
implementations. As an exclusive provider ofDeltech cost Point, they also host cost
(00:21):
Point in AWS gov cloud I taR space. Before we talk more about
Kenneth's company, I first asked himto talk a little bit about himself,
where he's from and his origin story. I grew up. I was born
in Louisville, Kentucky. I grewup in southeastern Kentucky and went to the
University of Kentucky and college undergrad beforein business before moving to Knoxville, Tennessee,
(00:44):
which is where another group is from. And went to University of Tennessee
and concentrated in finance. So spentformative years there bouncing between the right on
the state line there between Kentucky andTennessee, between Louisville, Lexington and Knoxville.
Kenneth love of our listeners, andI'm a big sports fan, and
I know you know this, butmy goodness, you were spoiled with some
good basketball and football in your collegeyears. My goodness, So you got
(01:08):
the right color on with your shirtto that band and I the other.
I have the other. I knowyou can't see it, but I have
the I have blue on. ButI grew up in a family that was
clearly divided because we were there onthe state line. But I've been grad
obviously Kentucky basketball and for a lotof years there Tennessee football, So it
depended on who was playing, youknow, between each other and a lot
(01:30):
of friendly family rival we're going on. But yes, you're correct, especially
Kentucky basketball. So for all ourCEOs and leaders out there, see you
know, if you go to twoschools, whoever's winning at the time.
Kenneth, this goes and hops onthat bandwagon. That's ow it rolls.
Well. Listen, we are hereto talk a lot about PDS consulting solutions.
I'd love to ask our leaders aboutthat idea. And I know what's
(01:51):
going on a couple of decades nowthat you came up with this with your
co founder and your co owner,but I'd love to hear about the idea
that epiphany you said, you knowwhat I've got this idea, there's a
hole in the industry. I thinkwe can fill it up. Tell us
about that. It was very interesting. I started out after I graduated from
University of Tennessee, actually started workingpart time before I did that. Then
(02:13):
I was working on kind of dualdegrees there. I've got degrees in finance,
but also you know, finance andaccounting all very mathematical, so as
music, so I also trained invocal performance. While I was there,
I was fortunate to work with anartist in residence from the met at the
time in classical of vocal training.But during the time there, I was
(02:34):
working part time with a small companyin oak Ridge that was a eventually Knoxville.
It's the Knoxville oak Ridge area,and the company was a minority owned
business that was in the Small Businesseight A program and they were in the
process of graduating from that program.So they had a lot of systems that
they needed put in place. SoI was brought in as an assistant to
(02:57):
the controller at the time, andwe actually implemented a couple of accounting systems.
But at that point in time,in the mid eighties, Deltech,
who we are a premiere partner withthere in the Herndon area. We're based
in Knoxville, but the Herndon areaobviously a hotbed the Beltway with Deltech.
We were very familiar with it andbought their original package that they came out
(03:22):
with, which will System one thatwas a financial ARP geared toward government contractors.
And I've stayed there at that companyfor eight years, left there as
the controller, and those were reallymy formative years, I guess more than
anything. I'm still very close friendswith the family that owned that company.
They're a Filipino family that are inKnoxville and grew a very successful company there.
(03:46):
But they let me wear multiple hats. I mean, one day we
were building buildings, I may bepulling cable coax cable to connect our internet.
Inside the business, I may becleaning the toilet one day that I
be stopped up, and the nextmorning I might be on a plane flying
to Charlotte to sit down in abordering to meet with our bank. You
know. So I had multiple hats, which was the best training that I
(04:09):
had. I worked in not onlythe accounting side as assistant controller, but
I managed their insurance programs worldwide.They were based. They had contracts all
over the world managed the obviously theIT and the computer system for the financial
system, which really led to myfoundation with working with government contractors. So
(04:30):
I left that company and went totallycommercial for about five years with a company
that they built precipitators on smokestacks forcompanies in the paper mills and so we
at that company, it was stillaccounting and I was working on Jdever's people
Soft Oracle Financials, and then eventuallyworked with a company out of Boston with
the bankruptcy court there to help companiesstay away from bankruptcy. So I got
(04:54):
a lot of experience with a lotof arps. But during that time,
Deltech rewrote their program completely and putit put it out in an a beta
site testing for quite a few companiesthat are in the GovCon arena. I
was fortunate to have friends that werefamiliar with it and pulled me back into
that community to be a beta sitewith Delta cost Point, which is the
(05:16):
program that we implement today. Soduring the during the mid to late nineties,
basically worked with a consulting firm mypartner and I did where we were
implementing that software and a few otherpackages, and at the same time,
we were seeing the you know,the opportunity there for our own business to
specialize just in that specific software.And you know a lot of people through
(05:41):
years have always said, well,after you did that, you know,
you put all your eggs in onebasket. But the gov con industry deltach
in particular delta cost points as there'sa big that's a big basket with the
with the growth and all that's therein that industry, especially in the defense
and aerospace industry. So around twothousand, two thousand and one, my
(06:03):
partner and I at the time thatwe were working together, she's a CPA,
in my background is heavily concentrated infinance and accounting degrees in finance.
We decided to go after the partnershipswith Deltech and form our own businesses to
provide these services that we had basicallybeen providing independently but also at a consulting
(06:25):
firm. And that from that pointin time is when we saw I guess,
the market not only for implementation servicesthat were there. And as time
went on to the mid two thousands, it was really before people really started
hearing about the cloud, but wehad a client that came to us that
had won a large government contract andthey really had no way to host the
(06:48):
software, and they had a quickstartup and a quick turnaround, and so
we had excess capacity and our fileservice, so we actually got into hosting
the software for the client and thatbasically is how the business got started and
started growing. And it's from thatpoint of time we've grown to where we
(07:08):
work with very small businesses up tobusinesses that do hundreds of millions of dollars
a year in revenue and have thousandsof employees. So it's a it's a
software that basically is scalable and worksfor all size industry today, which basically
has benefited us in the long runas far as the growth of our business
(07:30):
overall. But that really was theimpetus is the focus on helping small businesses
grow, become large businesses and bethere to support them with their growth,
and that's where we saw the opportunity. Well, thank you for sharing all.
Then, before we get into everythingthat is PDS Consulting Solutions, you
really struck my attention when you startedto talk about your resume and doing all
(07:51):
those different kinds of jobs and wearingthe hats. And the reason why I
bring this up is because this isa common theme in our series. And
I talk about this with my daughter, who's a rising senior in college and
she's a Cinema and Television arts major. She wants to be a director,
but you have to know what everybodyelse is doing on the set. There's
hundreds of people. And I toldher my advice was to do as much
(08:13):
as you can do lighting, doaudio, be a PA, do the
gaff, the boomer, everything.So when you're a director, you know
what everybody else is doing. That'sthe better way to lead. And it
sounds like what you did and allthose different jobs and all those different hats
got to the experience where you couldbe a great leader someday. Would I
be correct in that? That's exactlyright. And that's when I do speak
(08:35):
and when I talked to college studentsand even you know, my own family,
same thing you're doing there. That'sthe best advice you can give them.
And I was very fortunate. Ididn't realize that, you know,
right at the beginning when I wasdoing that, you know, especially when
I was crawling through tunnels trying topull cable to wire an office, and
then you know, then the accountinggroup would call and say, hey,
our bathroom was stopped up. Canyou unplug then stop the toilet, you
(09:00):
know. And then literally I'm notI'm not kidding, literally after that had
happened, because we were building abuilding. The next morning, one morning
literally was on a jet to youknow, to Charlotte from Knoxville to meet
with our bank on our revision ofour credit line. You know. So
one day you're in jeans or cutoffs, in a T shirt, and
the next morning you're in a timeand then a suit heading. You know.
So it was the best experience Ipossibly could have ever been given.
(09:20):
And that's what I tell people todaywhen I talk, you know, to
groups or just one on one tryingto do everything. Because if you if
your goal is you want to ownyour own business and run your own business,
at some point in time, youneed to be able to wear all
the hats. And that's been probablyfor me the best thing to and I
(09:45):
guess really, you know, thegovernment contracting community is one of those you
look at Y two K, youlook at the housing bubble, you look
at all that goes on stock marketcrashes, that government contracting goes right on.
That doesn't mean that you still haveto deal and weather with you know,
weather the peaks and valleys and youknow, in a business situation.
(10:05):
So if you've been through all thatand you've done all of that at a
point in time, you're not afraidor you're not you're you know, you're
always looking out, especially when youhave employees dependent upon you. You're always
looking down the line making sure thatthe business is there and that you've got
your popeline and your backlogs solid.But with that, because of that experience
of doing everything at an early pointin time, it really gives you,
(10:30):
I guess, the foundation to beable to feel like that you can get
through what's going on at the time. So kiddos and future CEOs, if
you walk in a person choose fora day, we have a better understanding
when you're a leader some day.That's well, that's what Kenneth and they're
talking about. All right, Welllet's talk about PDS consulting solutions, and
let's we're going to get into theweeds in just a second about gov con
and although you do for your clientsand what you do, because I really
(10:52):
want to educate our listeners that areintroduced to you and your company for the
first time, Kenneth, But whatis the mission statement? So our mission
really and it started out it's kindof evolved through the years, but it
basically is about supporting that community.But you know, our main tagline obviously
is supporting the companies who serve ournation, but it goes beyond that where
(11:15):
you know, really, as asyou're asking me early on, there the
reason and that I guess the partof the business that we enjoy in my
partner and I'm probably our team toenjoy the most is working with small companies
that have just started out just growingand you know, maybe had been you
(11:35):
know, within another large company,but had an opportunity to spend off with
a contract and get started on theirown. To help them grow and to
support them in their growth, andalso to feel like, you know,
we're supporting the nation along the waywith the with the clients that are working
across the board. From security,we work with firms that that provide security
(11:58):
on all of our bases across theworld. We work with obviously defense and
aerospace community, and a lot ofit is just you know, base off
services, meaning that some of ourclients just go in and maintain the basis
from the point of view of cuttinggrass from maintaining buildings, you know.
So along those lines, we feellike that this business is doing something also
(12:20):
for the country. Kenneth, let'sdo this. If somebody that's listening to
this interview was introduced to PDS ConsultingSolutions for the first time, what's the
pitch? What do you do foryour clients? So the first thing we
do, I guess the pitch fromthat point of view, But when we're
talking with a prospective client, rightout of the box is looking because we're
(12:41):
all financial people. My team ismade up of former they're all industry people
before they became implementers. So it'sall basically accounting backgrounds, financial controllers,
supply chain, manufacturing managers, projectcontrol people. So the main thing that
we want to do is come inand help them with their business processes,
because business processes from the get go, you know, when you're you're swimming
(13:05):
upstream, when you're coming out andstarting a new business and all of your
you know, and it's the samething even with me, you know,
you still today, I still wearmultiple hats, even in even in our
office. There At times there's thingsthat come up. I may you know,
I'm may be trying to fix adoor that's got a squeaky hinge on
it. You know, those arethe kind of things that you're as an
(13:26):
owner and an operator everything. It'snot only cash flow, it's not it's
not only you know, helping theemployees and your implementation team understand what they're
doing for the clients, but you'rebasically doing that same thing for your clients
to help them get their business processesin place so that they can grow and
so that they don't have to spendall of their time trying to manage it.
(13:50):
You get systems in place, policiesand procedures in place that can basically
take on the life of their own. You know, as we were getting
to know you in the green room, you said something that struck my attention.
And I want to talk about acouple different points if I could,
just for a moment, and onewas that you were already in the cloud.
But when COVID came aboard, whilethat changed everything. And I've talked
to a lot of CEOs and leaderswhen COVID happened, as challenging as it
(14:13):
was, there had to be amajor league pivot done, and I imagine
you had to do one as well, even though the cloud was there at
your grasp. But now fully asyou move into twenty twenty two twenty twenty
three, I found out a lotof businesses not only did the pivot,
but they got better and smarter becauseof that. Maybe you could allude to
us about just that transition over thatthree year period about what happened to the
(14:35):
company. Definitely, you know,as we were talking there, we were
already obviously in the cloud, butwe still had clients that were on prem
meaning that they had their systems hostedon premise on their own servers. So
a lot of times, a lotof that first year of COVID were helping
clients that weren't in the cloud,that had to go home and work but
(14:58):
couldn't reach their systems. So butthat was one of the things I guess,
you know right off the bat thatfor us as a company was an
easy transition. That even though andwe still have our corporate office, and
we'll still keep our corporate office,it's basically used as a as a floating
office right now to come in whenwhen we meet with clients. But what
(15:20):
we're seeing now with a lot ofour clients that did not have and we
did have a work from home kindof set up before COVID anyway, and
just the nature of the work,a lot of our clients did not have
that. And so one in particulartold me through the process about a year
into the process, when they hadto go home, they realized that work
(15:45):
from home really worked for them,and that their their team, their employees,
and even some of their contractors weremore productive at home. And you
know, a lot of times,when you think about it, you know,
you're in a large office with alot of people, people stopped by
your door, You get in,the conversation takes you ten minutes to get
back into what you were doing again, you know, so at home they're
working. And I think probably twoa lot of people, even though the
(16:07):
great resignation was taking place during thattime, a lot of people were concerned
about holding onto their jobs and theywere working harder from home. But a
lot of companies, i think realizedthat worked for them. Secondly, it's
really in the long run, hascut back their overhead from all the office
space they've had. But we werefortunate at pds in that regard that we
(16:30):
were a lot of what we didwas already in the cloud. Even the
probably the year before COVID hit,we did two probably three large implementations that
the only time I was on theclient's side was to sign the contract.
The implementation was done remotely. Allthe training was done via zoom or go
to meeting portals that were there.It went very smoothly, so it was
(16:56):
an easy transition for us during COVIDwhen everyone did have to go home.
Not the same case for a lotof our clients and the manufacturing, as
I said, where you need peoplethat've got to be on the shop floor,
right, But a lot of theteams, especially the admin and accounting
teams we experienced, those were ableto quickly transition to work from home and
(17:21):
plan to probably stay there, maybego back into the office a couple of
days. But basically that's where theworld is today, I think, and
is going to continue going that way. Well, Kenneth, I'm glad you
brought that up because that brings usto our second question. And I always
like to ask our leaders and CEOsabout how do you manage your staff?
They're spread all over the United States, and you're doing probably domestic, and
(17:41):
you know, all these different kindsof pipelines that you're in and all these
different tentacles making sure that there's agood work life balance for all of your
staff employees, but also making surethat they're doing what you want them to
do. So how do you dothat remotely and effectively? So that you
know, that's a very good question, and a lot of that goes back,
you know, specifically within pds,with the nature of professionals that are
(18:07):
there within the company. And youknow, I think most people know,
you know, accountants, a lotof people have the typical accounting view of
an accountant or the typical personality viewof an accountant, but also financial people
and project control people, those kindof things, and so the work ethic
is there really when they come in. So we have project lead, we
(18:30):
have different leads that are there.Like I obviously overall my main focus as
a CEO as business development, keepingthe business running and keeping business coming in.
But with that also with all ofour projects and all of our clients,
always in there as a program manager, and I actually sit down at
times and actually still work in thesoftware, not only to keep my skills
(18:52):
up, but just because there's certainareas within the software that for thirty thirty
five years that I've dealt with,specifically actually in government contracting and helping clients
negotiate their contracts and work with helpthem develop their indirect rates for building their
overheads and their GENA rates. Sothat portion of the software I actually still
(19:14):
work in a lot of times withmy team. But with that we have
an f and a team of financingaccounting team, so I have a project
lead there. And as I mentionedearlier, these resources, you know,
a lot of times with the costpoint expertise are hard to find that they're
either in industry or they are withanother partner working as an implementer. So
(19:34):
a lot of the team I've workedwith for twenty or twenty five years that
are that are with me at PDSand so they I've got leads that are
there. As I mentioned for financeand accounting, I've got the materials and
manufacturing lead. Of course, Ihave a controller in the company that's over
our accounting office, and then wehave an IT team manager that manages the
(19:55):
IT staff that handles all of ourall of the hosting and all of the
you know, day to day operationsand maintenance of the systems to keep them
running. So having the right Iguess key people in place for those managers
are is the way today I thinkremotely that you know most companies obviously you've
had to go to if not,if not that they were there already.
(20:18):
And my takeaway Kenneth is you havea trusted team, You've vetted them out
properly. You've also, yeah,you've trained them properly. Here are your
marching orders, go get them.So that makes a lot of sense and
that's good leadership. I did wantto ask you about differentiating yourself and I
don't want to assume that there's anothercompany does exactly what you do, but
when it comes to competition out there, how do you differentiate yourself as suddenly
(20:40):
battling for the same contract. Soit's very interesting in the industry that we're
in, especially the you know,the gov com community. Like I said,
it's very small. Do you addDeltech cost Point or Deltech World to
that, it even gets smaller.And there's a whole partner group that we're
part of at Deltech as a premierpartner with Deltech. It's the same thing
(21:00):
with our ABS partnership, but specificallythe core businesses cost point ARP implementations.
But what sets us aside. Onething I think is our experienced team and
just as you mentioned, you know, having a professional team that I have
there, that I've worked with foryears and being able to trust them.
Secondly, I think one of thethings that we do we through the years,
(21:26):
I guess probably most I guess intentlyover the past fifteen years, have
focused on manufacturing companies, and sothat's kind of a niche within the Delta
cost point ARP implementation world is havingmanufacturing expertise, not just someone that can
implement the system, but someone thatcomes from industry that knows how a shop
(21:48):
floor works, knows how supply chainworks. So that sets us apart with
the team that I have in particular, I think the other part of it
is is that we are a companythat focuses very highly on training and right
from the get go when we startan implementation. And we actually just did
(22:10):
a kick off with a large companyyesterday that we're going to be implementing,
and I think one of the thingsthat they told us from the start when
we were talking to them that Iguess set US aside was that they liked
our training approach and that I thinkthose three areas having the key people,
having great people on your team,the kind of the specialization there within the
(22:34):
manufacturing, defense and aerospace community withindelta cost point, and then obviously the
training approach I think sets us aside. Kenneth, I know, when you're
running a company is basically for thelast couple of decades that it's not always
unicorns and rainbows all the time.And you're a successful company. But with
all that said, what are thecurrent challenges that presented to you in the
(22:55):
industry right now? Well, theinteresting thing, you know, it's like
I said earlier, you know,guvcon community or the gucon industry, regardless
of what's going on in the overalleconomy or the country, you know,
stock market bubbles, real estate whatever, whatever what have you. There,
government contracting continues to go on.That doesn't mean there's not peaks and valleys,
(23:17):
and we've definitely seen peaks and valleysand a lot of valleys over the
last couple of years with the government, and we're all kind of watching our
phones and today even watching for theyou know, for the debt ceiling agreement,
so that impacts our contractors, andso a lot of over the past
couple of years, especially during COVIDwhen a lot of money went to COVID
relief, which was great, butyou know, there's a lot of things
(23:40):
that have taken the budget away fromgovernment contractors where they have one our contents
of one contracts and they've gotten theircontract awards, but they actually haven't gotten
their mods to their contracts, theirmodifications where they've gotten their funding. So
they know they've got a contract,but they don't have funding. So that's
been something that within our business thatwe have always we've got sustaining support,
(24:03):
clients that we know, continuing support, sustaining support that basically take us through
the peaks and valleys. But oneof the biggest challenges really has been the
past two years with the government andwith the you know, the threat of
recession and also this especially right now, this debt ceiling agreement. Kenneth,
we know when we talk to ourCEOs and our leaders and our owners of
(24:26):
companies that they're tireless workers, theyhave passion, but also there's a little
bit of time when you're not sleeping, when you get a little little shut
I after running a company that there'ssome time for a philanthropic and charity thing
that that people like to do.And whether it's with the company, with
PDS consulting solutions, or with yourselfand your family, what do you like
to be part of, So youknow, probably three different areas. They're
(24:48):
personally involved in music and obviously trainedin music, so give back in the
music community where I can, andwith church and other philanthropic events. Secondly,
probably within the business and personally too. This is where it kind of
crosses over. I live on thecoast in South Carolina most of the time,
(25:08):
bounced back and forth between here andin Knoxville, Tennessee, where our
corporate office is. But basically Igrew up in the mountains of Kentucky.
But I'm an ocean person, sowe really Jennifer and I try to work
with there's a couple of organizations forocean in particular that does clean ups with
plastic in the ocean. Try tosupport that personally and within the company.
(25:30):
It's really they don't call themselves acharity and you can't really donate to them,
but there's other ways to sponsor them. And then thirdly, we through
the years have always just because ofthe GovCon community and a lot of our
co workers and people that you know, we team within clients are veterans and
you know they have come out andform veteran owned businesses, so we support
(25:53):
We do get confused at times.There's a lot of PDS companies out in
the country. I didn't know thatwhen we first incorporated twenty something years ago
and we were doing the state youknow, going with the Secretary of State
to check out the names and allthat. We didn't realize at the time
how many PDS companies are out there. So there's another company that makes we
(26:15):
get confused with a lot which we'renot. It's a company called PDS Consultants
that makes glasses for the veterans there. It's a company that they're actually they're
based in Louisville, Kentucky. Sothere's a lot of confusion there sometimes with
us because we're an accounting software implementationright but we do and because of our
(26:36):
work with supporting veterans events, especiallyin Knoxville, and we go to some
of their conferences where we exhibit.So that's another area where we try to
focus our time and support that community. That's wonderful. Thanks for sharing well.
As we put a ball in ourconversation, Kenneth. And if somebody
once again has been introduced to PDSConsulting Solutions for the very first time,
(26:56):
and you want to leave them withone takeaway, what would it be?
For the most part, I thinkyou know, the biggest takeaway with us
is that we're going to deliver foryou with your implementation and make sure that
our goal as a partner with delTech obviously and being in the top tier
(27:18):
with them as a premier partner,is evangelization of the software. And that's
why I put PDS into an exclusivepartnership with Deltech years ago, where that's
the only software that we implement.So I want to make sure at the
end of the day that your implementationis successful for you and you're a happy
cost point customer. So that's themain thing from the beginning of any conversations
(27:45):
that we have, regardless of whatthe clients are going through at the time,
we want to make sure that youknow that's especially in the I T
world and in the implementation world.I'm sure you've heard it. Everybody knows
that garbage and garbage out you don'tset the system up properly, and you
don't bring experience to the table toset the system up properly, and they're
not going to have a good takeaway. So our goal, and I think
(28:07):
my reputation, our company's reputation,and my former partner who's retired her reputation
too, has been to make surethat our clients are happy with not only
our work, but with the systemthat we leave them with. Well said,
So, if anybody wants to possiblypartner up with you, I know
you're looking for some more people.There could be some career opportunities, or
they just want to check out alittle bit more. What's the website,
(28:29):
Urel, So it is PDS Consultsdot com. So that's PDS www dot
PDS. So the name came fromParsons David Parsons Davis Services, so that's
my last name. My partner's lastname was Laura Davis and then services.
So PDS C O N s ULTS dot com, Kenneth, it has
(28:52):
been a tree to talk to you. I can tell you how much we
appreciate your time because we know howbusy you are. But continue success and
thank you so very much for joiningus on CEO as you should know.
Thank you, Dennis, we appreciateit, thank you for having us,
and thank you to M and TBank, our community partner. M ANDT
Bank supports CEOs you should know aspart of their ongoing commitment to building strong
communities, and that starts by backingthe businesses within them. As a bank
(29:15):
for communities, M and T believesin dedicating time, talent, and resources
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.