Episode Transcript
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M and T Bank presents CEOs youshould know powered by Iheartadia. Let's meet
Rafael Fagundo. He is the founderand CEO for CR seven, located in
Northern Virginia. They deliver healthcare,information technology, and consulting solutions. Before
we talk more about Ralph's company,I first asked him to talk a little
bit about himself, where he's from, and his origin story. I'm Cuban.
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I was born in Cuba. Myfamily's Cuban, long lineage of Cuban
my background, and we came tothe United States in nineteen sixty nine.
You know, so grateful for myparents to have done that. It's given
us an incredible opportunity and freedom andall the things that we enjoy in this
great country. And I grew upin Northern Virginia, that's where we settled.
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After high school, I joined themilitary, the US Navy. I
served almost five years, and Iwas a legalman in the Navy. I
wanted to follow my father's footsteps.He was a lawyer and he was a
judging Cuban or lawyer here in theUnited States. And I thought I wanted
to follow his footsteps. And soonce I got out of the Navy.
I went to work on Capitol Hilldoing some legislative work and did some living
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as well for some for a privatecompany, and I realized at some point
that my love was really more aroundtechnology. I found myself, you know,
working on networks and building novelle networksin my basement at the time,
up till five in the morning,and then getting up and going to work
on Capitol Hill. And the Memberof Congress that I was working for sort
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of recognize that that was my passion, and he recommended me to a president
presidential appointment under Bush one to bethe head of it for an organization referred
to as United States Enrichment Corporation whichu SEC. They ultimately took over the
uranium enrichment work that the Department ofEnergy was doing and they privatized it and
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I was head of it for thatorganization for about five years. And then
I chase the dot com dream forabout five years. Several different companies never
really achieved the goals I wanted toachieve. And then when nine to eleven
hit, our pipeline dried up whereI was working, and I had the
good fortune of joining Locheed Martin workingfor the gentleman who was the captain of
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the ship that I served down inthe early eighties, and that's where I
learned about government contracting, right Andso after that, having learned about government
contracting, I had the good fortuneof being recruited to a small firm to
run business development. Ultimately took overcontrol of that company, turned it into
an eight eight firm, had somegood success doing that, and then sold
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my interests in that company and startedCR seven to do largely software development and
program manage to support dedicated to thefederal government. Appreciate you sharing all that
raff and first of all, thankyou for your service. Who are always
appreciative of all the people that servein the military, especially in the DMV.
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Love it. I think it's great, and I didn't want to ask
you something about leadership when it comesto that. But I've also noticed too,
and all the wonderful people like youthat I get to talk to,
there are so many in this area, first generation immigrant families that start here
in the DMV and turn out tobe such incredible leaders. And I'm glad
we get a chance to talk toyou about your journey and your story.
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Now when it comes to the military. I did not serve, but I'm
in awe of anybody that did.But I'm pretty clear about this that,
you know, when it comes tothe structure, the passion and the hard
work, there is a carry overto being a CEO. And if you
could, because we have a lotof leaders and the future leaders that listen
to this series, not all servedin the military. But what did you
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take from the military as you becamea CEO of a company? Yeah?
Great, great question. You know, I've always said people who ask me
about, you know, being anentrepreneur and starting your own thing, you
know what's most important. I thinkthe single most important thing is really tenacity.
It's just simply not giving up.It's putting one foot in front of
the other every day in the faceof extreme hardship. Those are the folks
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that get through sort of to theother side to start to achieve some success.
But you know, last year,we had the good fortune of being
named as the mid year company forthe dav Disabled American Veteran Organization and I
had the opportunity to give a quickspeech and you knows, as I talked
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to the folks that were in theaudience, who were all disabled veterans.
You know, I told them,and I believe this deeply that one of
the things that I learned most inthe military, and I think most people
in the military learned, is adaptability. So really the combination of tenacity and
adaptability, I think that's what's gottenme through all of the challenges and hard
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times to get through where we aretoday. And they sort of can you
know those two tenants continue to supportus as you know we have challenges out
of us. There's no surprise inyour answer because of common through and a
lot of the answers to my questionis passion, tenacity, never giving up,
never taking no for an answer fromall our leaders out there, because
it's always a risk. You're doinga lead of faith out there as a
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CEO and starting your own company,which you did almost fourteen years ago.
Okay, we're here to talk aboutCRRA seven. You know you're coming up
in another five years on two decadesof this company with a lot of hard
work, a lot of growth.I know you work domestically that we're going
to talk about before we get inall your capabilities and your programs and what
you do are there. What's themission statement of C R seven. Well,
the mission statement is serving those whoserved, and we came up with
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that because when I started the company, I was pretty much dedicated to supporting
the VA and ultimately, you know, veterans or disabled veterans, either directly
or indirectly. So that is ourmission statement. Now with that said,
you know, we've enjoyed some goodgrowth at CR seven and so we support
other organizations beyond the BA. Butyou know, while it's serving those who
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serve, at the same time,we're serving a lot of citizens. Were
serving a lot of civilians through thework that we do, and we're quite
proud of that, all right,And under your logo, it's very simple
when it comes to technology consulting andsolutions. So if our listeners were introduced
to Cerra seven for the first timeever and you were making your pitch,
what do you guys actually do.We do a myriad of technology support services,
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everything from software development to maintenance andoperation of systems to IV and V.
In fact, we just want ourbiggest contract to date, it's about
one hundred and four million dollar awarddoing IV and V for the VA,
and so we can really we doa lot in a lot of federal contractors.
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You know, you start out withan attention to do one thing,
call it software development in our case, and then from that you're gaining experience,
you're getting to know the customer,you're doing good work, and then
other opportunities pop up that allow youto recruit and hire some talented folks to
help you do other things, likeI said, maintenance and operations or program
management, a myriad of other tasks. RALF, I know, you've got
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to three hundred and fifty plus staffthat are in kind of a hybrid format,
which most people are, if notcompletely, working from home, and
you work domestically with your team.With all that said, I don't want
to assume there's any company out therethat does exactly what you do. But
if you're going against and pitching yourselffor a contract and there is some competition
out there, how do you differentiateCierra seven from everybody else? Sure,
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that's a great question. There area lot of firms that do what we
do. You know, we're notWe're not terribly unique. To be blunt,
we think we do very good work, but we also have a lot
of competitors that do very good work. And I think you know, when
I started the company, you know, it was really myself and a shingle.
And the one thing that I whenI went out and talked to other
partners about you joining their teams andtrying to get some work share and some
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experience, the one thing I thinkthat I heard that was different about us
and me in particular at that pointin time was being very responsive. Right.
I remember there was an instance wherewe were working with a large company.
We were all working on proposal togetherand there was a kick in the
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proposal and something like at one thirtyam, you know, the proposal manager
sent out a request to all ofthe subs and we weren't on subs for
some support, and we answered thatimmediately. That is what I'm referring to,
being always available and always quick torespond with some good solutions to meet
the customers needs. Now, clearlythere are the companies that are responsible as
well, but I think that's that'swhat we can really claim that we do
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very well. We like to respondvery quickly with good solutions for the customer.
Well, I like what you're talkingabout, because we all say it.
You know, when we get ona phone, it doesn't matter what
it is customer service is kind ofdead out there in general, so that's
something you obviously pride yourself on.So i'd love to hear that. I
did want to ask you about successstory and some challenges, and let's put
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a pin in a success story justfor now, because I imagine you have
several but one thing we can talkabout in just a moment. Well,
when it comes to your industry,where are your current challenge? Well,
well, I think our number onechallenge is recruiting talent. Right There's plenty
of work out there, there's noquestion. The hard part is finding folks
to be able to address the needsof our clients. And so you know
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that you've seen the unemployment rates andthe talent poll right there in particularly in
the DMB. It's extremely competitive rightfor talent. So i'd say that's our
number one challenge, and I thinkmost of our competitors have the same challenge,
if you will. Number two,i'd say, really just following and
tracking the federal budget where the dollarsare right, because the dollars identify needs,
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and so we try to track thatvery closely, and of course with
you know, with all of thecontinuing resolutions and so on, it becomes
a little bit more difficult to getinsight into where those dollars are going and
how they're going to be spent.A lot of the stuff that we are
pursuing or have pursued sort of getpushed to the right, keep getting pushed
to the right, and so youknow, tracking that and trying to manage
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that process as best we can froma corporate perspective is another one of our
challenges. Okay, rap, howabout a success story. I know that
you work with lying client, alot of clients that you can't address my
name, a lot of superstruction.That's okay, But is there a story
out there in general terms where yousaid, you know what today, the
team and I we knocked that oneout of the park for the client.
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Yeah. Absolutely, there are two. And I can't get into great details,
as you said, because it's youknow, client sensitivity, but there
have been at least two, maybethree instances where we've received you know,
industry recognition for innovation on some ofthe programs and projects that we work on.
You know, technically the government customerreceives the award, but certainly we
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get recognized as the contractor who helpedthe government with those innovative initiatives, and
so we're super proud of that.You know, to get to get awards
from what are your peers, that'spretty significant in my mind, and so
that's something that we're extremely proud of. Unfortunately, can't go into more detail.
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There's some more detail I think onour website if anyone cares to see
that, that should a little bitmore light on some of those solutions.
RAF. I like to ask ourleaders and our CEOs about today's work environment.
As we mentioned a few times,you've got a hybrid workforce three hundred
and fifty people, so I imaginethey're spread all throughout the United States,
maybe all over the world. Yes, you can get into detail about that,
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but I know that every business isrespective to their own work and what
they do, depending on who comesto work who doesn't hybrid. Yes,
it's a big discussion today. Maybeyou could go into for our leaders and
you can just talk from your experienceabout today's climate about you know, you
talked about getting that real high endperson to work for you, but also
it's a competitive landscape out there andthere are lots of jobs available to them,
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so they have a chance to pickand choose. They want a good
work life balance. But also withall these people spread off, you don't
get to see them all the time. So my questioning you is, how
do you make sure that they dowhat you need them to do with your
vision, but also they have thatgood work life balance and they're a happy
employee. Yeah, hey, greatquestion. We're very supportive of the sort
of work from home model, right. We believe in the virtual model.
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I think that's been proven well overthe last several years with COVID. The
nature of our work even pre COVID, you know, a portion of our
staff work on site on government site, and then there's a portion of our
site that work from home and aportion of the site of our folks that
work from corporate headquarters. Obviously,so we haven't changed anything in terms of
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how we approach hiring. One ofthe things that I think is, I
think, as Boad wallferesus, thefact that we do support the virtual model.
A lot of people like the ideaof working from home and having a
bit more flexibility, and the natureof our work I think allows us to
really track productivity in a way thatdoesn't threaten the very fact that folks are
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working from home, right, Weknow when people are working when they're not.
We know when they're delivering results andwhen they're not. And so we're
not terribly concerned about that model,the virtual model, and people not working
because we can it's pretty it becomespretty evident pretty quickly when people are doing
what they're supposed to be doing orif they're not, and obviously we react
accordingly. I'm going to assume thatyou have a lot of managers underneath you
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that probably talk more directly to thestaff. And with that said, in
this series, we also been toldby a lot of CEOs, depending on
the amount of employees, that theyalso have access to you. So does
your staff have access to you whenthey want? Oh? Yeah, one
hundred percent. I mean, I'veI've shared those We have quarterly all hands
meetings, if you will, whereeverybody gets on teams and we talk about
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our successes, some of our challenges, some of the things that have happened,
et cetera. And one of thethings that I've said in those sessions,
obviously including to my direct reports,is anybody can can talk to me
if they feel that their needs ordesires or there's an issue that they need
that they're not getting a result on. With that said, the only way
they can talk to me is bymaking sure that they tell their direct report
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that they're going to talk to me, because I don't want my direct reports
being surprised. And that's what thishas happened on plenty of occasions where you
know, people who are on siteworking with the client may have some issues.
There are two or three levels whereyou've removed from me, but they
raise issues that are important up forme to be aware of and we have
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that discussion. So I think wedefinitely have an open door policy, including
to my office outstanding. Thank youfor that. If we could take just
a break from CR seven just fora minute, wrap and ask you about
philanthropic and charity work. I knowthat you're very busy, you're working very
hard, but when you get anopportunity, whether it's with a company or
personally, what do you like tobe a part of. Oh yeah,
well, as I mentioned earlier,we support the dav We support Window Warrior
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initiatives, you know, and we'veeven had some of our team members from
CR seven go to the local hospitalswhere vets are are being cared for to
really cheer folks up right, andyou know, I'm so proud of that.
That's an example of an initiative thatfolks on my team took. I
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had nothing to do with that.They told me that they did this after
they did it, and that mademe extremely proud because to me, that
means that these folks are really believingour mission statement and they're working from the
heart, and they're going over andabove to help veterans, whether it's again
directly or indirectly through systems or wedo a lot of medical coding as an
example, which is which is ayou know, that is translating what doctors
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orders are into a code that ultimatelygets filled. We're one of the more
prolific companies that do that for theVA. And so all of these examples,
I really believe that folks on ourteam, probably bar none, really
believe in our mission statement and wantto support veterans. Many of our folks
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are not veterans, but they havefathers, brothers, uncles or what have
you, and so it's again it'snear and dear to their heart. Rap
if we as we put a bowin our conversation, and once again,
if there's a lot of listeners outthere that are being introduced to c R
seven for the first time. What'sthe one takeaway you want everybody to be
left with. Well, depends onwho the audience is. But like,
we're a small, yet growing company, very dedicated supporting the federal government,
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not only at the BA we do, but as I mentioned, we're expanding
into other agencies. It's a greatplace to work. You know. We
we empower folks. I think that'sour management style. We allow mistakes to
be made. We're forgiving as longas long as it's obviously in the right
direction. And so you know,we have a lot of opportunities on our
website of open positions. If anybody'sinterested in looking more into what we do
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and how we do it, maybe interested in joining us. And what's
the website is? Yeah, it'sit's www dot c R seven dot com
and that's SI E R A thenumber seven dot com. And I know
that there are a lot of thingsthat are out of your control, whether
it's federal budgets and competition out there, but you've done some amazing growth over
the last almost fifteen years that youput this company together. What does growth
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look like and how does the industrylook for you going to the future in
the next five ten years. Yeah, Well, you know, again,
the more we grow, the moreskill set we have, right and more
talent pool that we have, whichallows us to expand our purview of what
we think we can of where wethink we can help the federal government.
So we'll continue to do that.If you know, our pipeline is huge
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right now. The pipeline is youknow, opportunities that we're pursuing. You
know, if we're fortunate to winyou a fraction of that, we'll be
in good shape. And so we'llcontinue to grow. We'll continue to be
very focused on the federal government,expanding into other agencies, and you know,
keep trying to service our veterans andour citizens and all of the other
stakeholders that we support. Rap Ican't tell you how much I appreciate your
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time. Once again, thank youfor your military service and continue success with
Sierra seven. Sounds like it's justbeen a fantastic almost fifteen years, and
we wish you and your staff nothingof the best, and we really appreciate
you joining us on CEO as youshould know. Absolutely, thank you for
the opportunity I really appreciate it.Our community partner, M and T Bank
supports CEO, as you should know, as part of their ongoing commitment to
building strong communities, and that startsby backing the businesses within them. As
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a bank for communities, M andT believes in dedicating time, talent,
and resources to help local businesses thrive, because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed.