Jonathan and Stephanie Llanera started OnesourcePCS in 2002 as a mom and pop computer repair shop in Pensacola. Today they’ve expanded into IT and Medical divisions, with 15 government contracts, moving from a home office to a 600 square foot office, and now a 5400 square foot building, and say they owe a lot to Florida PTAC at UWF Procurement Specialist Laura Subel. “Before 2014 we didn’t know anything about the federal marketspace, and Laura was instrumental in teaching us a lot,” says Jonathan. “We learned about the 8a program, how to read contracts, bids, proposals, everything.” He adds that the turning point was when Subel introduced them to Cherri Duval at Eglin Air Force Base and Chris Wentworth at Hurlburt Field. “I had to do a presentation at NAS Jacksonville, and Laura brought an audience in here and helped us prepare a PowerPoint presentation,” he recalls. “She critiqued us, and helped us refine it, and then I went over to Jacksonville in a big conference center and presented to a big group of contracting officers and department heads. We had 15 minutes.”
Stephanie says, “One of the biggest things that we learned from Laura and others was don’t give up. Be persistent.” She explains that it takes a while before an agency will gain the confidence in giving you that first contract. “It was definitely a game changer for us, when someone gave us the chance to get our foot in the door at Eglin, and we were very excited about that,” she adds. “After 15 months of pounding the pavement and developing those relationships, it happened. From there, experiencing the growth as quickly as we did was a major game changer for us.”
Even with all of their new found success, Jonathan says the highlight for him is still that first contract. “It was for one employee,” he explains. “I hate to say it, but that was our favorite, because it was our first employee, and she went on and got promoted to officer candidate school. You win that multi-million dollar contract, but you still look back and say, that first one was the scariest, the most exciting and the most rewarding of all of it, because it was the first one.”
After that he said they really had to commit to doing the federal contracts. He recalls, “We only grew a certain amount when we were trying to do our commercial consumer retail with the little repair stores.” “I really had to step back and make a commitment to devote our resources and my time to doing the federal work. It started with one small contract in 2015, for about $50,000 or something like that.” Now they work in Texas, Nevada, Florida, and have 15 contracts. He continues, “We knew about IT and knew how to do our work; we just knew nothing about how the government went about doing that. So this is where Laura and PTAC were vital to our growth and learning experience. I’m thankful you were here.”
Jonathan and Stephanie both say it’s great getting the work, but they don’t want the quantity to get in the way of the quality. “We pride ourselves on really making sure we provide good quality service, and that we really take care of our employees and our customers, and I think that’s contributed to our growth,” says Stephanie. Jonathan adds, “We make sure that we get high customer ratings. We take care of our employees, and we’re very responsive. With any problems, or anything the government needs, we try to be very responsive.”
Moving into the future, Jonathan says he now has a formal SBS mentorship with a company in Orlando called Milvets. “They’re a service disabled company,” he explains. “They went through the 8a program in the 1990’s, and they’re doing great. It strengthens our capabilities, because they are a big cybersecurity IT Company. The whole reason for this mentorship right now is so that I can learn how to grow the company properly. At least I have an example that I can look at.” He goes on to say that he can see Onesource being a mentor five or six years from now. “I believe in the entire program,” he concludes. “Everything that’s happening here is a system that works, and if I can give back, I’m going to do that.”