Amy Chase: Hi! I’m Amy Chase and welcome to the 2007 SPA award here in Saint Louis SBTV.com this year covering the event and talking to some of the local business winners and you are Michael Zambrana, President of Pangea Group and he is the regional subcontractor of the year. Congratulations.
Michael Zambrana: Thank you.
Amy Chase: Tell me a little bit about the subcontracting business. You were in the prime contracting business before? What’s the difference between the two?
Michael Zambrana: Well we’re still in the prime contracting business. The difference is instead of working directly from the federal government, you’re working for large fine contractors that are working for the federal government, whether it’s Back Door or Washington group or other large businesses in the manufacturing area bowling.
Amy Chase: And to me a little bit about obviously a simple best knowledge of a lot of rules and regulations and things that you have to comply with in order to be in that business?
Michael Zambrana: Well obviously, working for the federal government there’s a lot of rules and regulations but the nice thing is they write all the rules and regulations down. It’s a little bit different when you’re working for a large business because the rules and regulations of the terms, the conditions of all the subcontracts are different. So you really have to pay attention to you know what are the rules for that particular contract. What honor us rules maybe putting on you or try to put on you. So you really have to pay attention those subcontract.
Amy Chase: And you specialized in fact—obviously it takes a lot of specialty working good if they kind of knowledge.
Michael Zambrana: Well you know I always say there’s two ways to learn to do business and one is through demand of Proto J program. We are participating in the department of energy, matter Proto J program. The armies matter Proto J program and so we learned a lot about handling those materials there. The other way of learning is of course school of Paradox and we don’t recommend that so—
Amy Chase: That can be soon radioactive material. What about event like this that sells where you meet other small business owners? You mean that there are—what do you like to take away from events like this?
Michael Zambrana: Well we meet what we call competemates. Competemates, we compete on some opportunities and of course we team on opportunities. There some very large small business set aside that they government coming out with now and we’ll put together a team of four or five small businesses and pursue and very large opportunity together. So there’s a lot about opportunity not only for us to get good value on things that we’re buying and to have find vendors but teammates too.
Amy Chase: Great, thank you so much Michael Zambrana with the Pangea Group and they are the subcontractors of the year here at the SPA award in Saint Louise. Stay tuned SBTV.com where small business is our only business.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services