 my dad when he wanted to help me says well if you really like business then you know you should go work with your uncle and my uncle was the only other one that really wasn't a scientist or you know anything like that so I went to work with him and it turns out that he was one of the first 8a companies in the United States so government marketing services 701 East Goody Drive Rockville Maryland okay and take the bus out there that was cool but so we sold how long ago was that how long ago was that I think I first worked there 1977 1978 wow he was 8a in 78 yeah yeah yeah yeah that's pretty amazing that's I like that I like so what why that's important was we didn't have any marketing or sales people there okay Ada Hackett whose daughter was a classmate of mine so that was cool Mrs. Hackett was there she had a red phone and she had a blue phone and at that time the red phone I think was GSA and the blue phone was SBA and at that time the way that they explained that work was when the government had a need for small business at the time and this was when it was all really just forming they would call SBA and the contracting officers would call SBA with orders and in our case it was sporting goods office machinery and office electronics so and what I mean by that that's my joke was that it's the HP 12C calculator okay I don't know that I unloaded boxes of those from UPS put them up on a fourth floor of our warehouse with a ladder on the outside I'm not sure we had OSHA back then yeah I packed and sent those like crazy but so I was fascinated that people would be ordering these things by the hundreds it's like who orders so many calculators who orders all these things right and then I rolled in it was the government you know and he just explained is the government buys a lot of just be quiet and pack them okay but so at that time that we didn't have marketing and sales staff and that's important for people to know because that was the time when all we had was the certification but the competition for Ada companies was not very large so I believe that SBA at the time they basically would say Eric and Rob are in this area to produce you know you know software or whatever or let's say let's say furniture and there's like Eric okay we need a hundred chairs can you fill that well I can do 75 okay then we'll go down to Rob Rob we have 25 can you do that great and once they had enough then then SBA would disappear but we did not promote each other right right so then fast forward my uncle sent me to law school he told me to go to law school because if you want to work with me which I did he says nobody listens to the CEO and the president which I am but nobody argues with the lawyer so as fate would have it my law school roommate got married and he had a neighbor of his join me at the wedding we sat at the same table and Bob Weber and Rob Wong kind of interesting it was an Arabic wedding have you ever been to an Arabic wedding I have not yeah well there's a lot of there's a lot of people there but it just just by coincidence there were three people that were not Arabic and we somehow sat at the same table how awesome is that right right and so Mr Weber says he goes you're Sam's buddy and I said I am he says Sam worked for us at SBA I said I've heard about that he says do you know Victor young and I said I do that's my uncle he goes I know Victor too he was one of our first a day companies and this is this is our agency you should come talk to me when you graduate and so probably about a year later I graduate and this is a time when we didn't have internet or cell phones so guess who calls one day Mr Weber you know in this day and age you might consider that stalking right that's pretty that's pretty remarkable but so he just says he goes hey we just you know we just said congratulations to Sam remember you promised you'd come talk to me so when talked to went to talk to Mr Weber and I ended up getting a job in the general counsel's office and then I ended up writing a version of the 8a regulations the first rewrite they had in 1990 and then I was counsel to the 8a program and then I helped to run the 8a program for six months and then I went to be a district district director for two of the SBA district offices and by that time it was 1997 and then I left SBA came back to Washington and I thought I would have a law firm and then I realized after a while that the law firm that would help 8a companies and I realized I really would rather be that company rather than be the attorney so I started my own 8a company and I was in the IT and professional services areas and then from there I had leadership because I had leadership of about 16 8a and hub zone companies and I'll just try to help them to grow I mean I know how to start companies from zero right I mean like you know it's all those stories right nobody nobody has that book but you know after five years like oh great and then in 2017 I got a call to go to the transition team for Mr Trump and I was actually resistant to do that so I ended up just talking to the person that they thought would help to run SBA and I thought that my time was over after after that finished and then I got a call from Mrs. McMahon that said you know I enjoyed meeting you and the end of the day would you consider coming back to SBA and so I had actually thought that GCBD that they had already had somebody chosen and they said no we think that you'd be perfect for it and so you know I thought that was a great job and I talked to Mrs. McMahon and she was absolutely wonderful I told her I mean the the story I told you was you know I said I haven't had a boss for 20 years and he'll do my best to fall in line you know and so she was so amazing because she she said if you know how to fix these programs I will do everything I can to support you and she was fantastic you know and I was I was certainly not the easiest employee ever to have I'm sure but I tried to be happy and be helpful every day I was there I was blessed with this incredible incredible staff and several of them as I told you I mean I went back to SBA and I saw four or five of my friends who I've known for 35 years and I brought some of them up to the team so for three years it was the best job ever it was like going to summer camp and then you know you get to go with your friends except they all know stuff right and and you have the ability to go to a leader that says you want to fix that fix it right and I think that we I think we did some really good work we we fixed the hub zone program I believe or we at least made it a lot easier I'll back up a little bit and I'll tell you that my goal when I went back was to try to do two things make it you know I treated our SBA certifications and the government goal like it was a business goal and so the end of the day I wanted to make the public to see the value of SBA certifications and the government contracting market but more importantly I wanted the government contracting officers to see the value in using SBA certified companies and that that had always been my mission that was my mission at SBA and it continues to be my mission