Video Transcript
Grant Engine · Horizons Global Solutions
Participants
- Sam Tetlow – Founder & CEO, Grant Engine · Host
- David F. Lasseter – Founder, Horizons Global Solutions (HGS)
Key Takeaways from this Conversation
Nuggets of wisdom and experience distilled from the conversation:
- 1. Engagement Is a Two-Branch Game
HGS works the executive branch (the funding agencies) and Congress together, because advancing one without the other tends to backfire. You want both branches aligned, not one trying to force the other’s hand. - 2. Timing Drives Outcomes: Engage in the Fall
To influence next year’s appropriations, the window is roughly September through December of the prior year. For BARDA specifically, you need to be talking to them in the late October to December timeframe, before the fiscal-year door effectively closes in early spring. - 3. The FY26 CR Was a Net Positive
Getting through FY26 funding clears the path for what comes next: a reconciliation package (likely carrying 2017-style tax reform, border funding, and a meaningful tranche of defense funding) and a delayed FY26 budget expected around mid-May, possibly a “skinny” version. - 4. The NDAA Is a Year-Round Lever
As one of the only bills that passes every year, the National Defense Authorization Act can be used to shape the following year’s defense priorities, signaling what Congress wants the department to pursue, or stop pursuing. - 5. Relationships Come Before Asks
Lead with a genuine solution to a real problem, know your audience, and build credibility first. Walking in cold and asking for something on the first meeting can do lasting, long-term damage to a relationship with a congressional office or an agency. - 6. Government Engagement Is Validation
A CRADA or a federal investment signals credibility to investors and potential partners. Agencies like the FDA and the military can actively help move a product forward, on regulatory strategy and even reimbursement, so not engaging cuts off the single largest source of guidance and, eventually, a customer. - 7. Act Now, Not “Next Year”
Waiting until the dust settles risks losing a full funding cycle. If you are not in the process now, you will likely have to wait until next year, and as Lasseter puts it, two years becomes never. - 8. Small and Nimble Wins
HGS’s senior, bipartisan team (David Lasseter, Julie Lasseter, Stephen Boyd, and Nikki Davis) is built for fast, close client engagement, the kind of real-time responsiveness that is rare in the D.C. world and that makes the difference for clients.
Full Transcript
Sam Tetlow
All right. David, it’s good to see you again.
David Lasseter
It’s great to see you too.
Sam Tetlow
Are you in Florida or D.C. right now?
David Lasseter
Actually, Huntsville, Alabama. It’s home now, after moving from D.C. a few years ago. Although, as you know, I get up to D.C. quite a bit. We’ve been up there three of the last four weeks.
Sam Tetlow
Right on. It’s been a pretty wild time. So you watched the CR happen?
David Lasseter
Oh, yes.
Sam Tetlow
We’ve got a number of clients that had appropriations requests and otherwise in the base FY25 funding bill that they were hoping to see funded. It turns out some have gotten funding, based on the House actually lining out certain appropriations that were in the base FY25 bill and remained in the continuing resolution, more on the defense side. There’s a lot to unpack there with how that went down, and also what got cut and what got increased, especially the CDMRP program. That’s on a lot of people’s minds. But let’s do a quick bit of context on your background and HGS. I think folks know Grant Engine, or they can find us online, but we really want to talk about you: how you started HGS, where your focus is, why you started it, and what you’re doing.
David Lasseter
Well, thank you, and it’s great to see you again, Sam. I founded HGS in 2021, about a month after leaving the Department of Defense, where I had served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. That was an amazing opportunity, and I worked with some incredible people. In that job, I oversaw all policies, plans, programs, and strategies for countering weapons of mass destruction across the entire CBRN continuum: chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. That also included international arms control treaties, so multilateral arms control, counterproliferation, nonproliferation, the Cooperative Threat Reduction program at DTRA, and, interestingly, airspace and oceans policy, which had bearing on global mobility of the U.S. military and across commercial vessels. So it was pretty all encompassing within the Under Secretary for Policy. I worked closely with Acquisition and Sustainment in that job, so the Chem-Bio Defense Program and the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Programs. Our two offices worked closely to ensure that the Department of Defense, its military personnel, and DoD civilians have all of the protections they need, whether it is medical countermeasures, detection, or mitigation, across that CBRN threat spectrum. That was my most recent job in government.
Before that, I had the pleasure to serve in the Department of Justice as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, where I oversaw the national security portfolio as it related to Congress: intelligence programs and federal law enforcement programs that had a bearing on congressional authorizations or appropriations. So I was helping and guiding the federal law enforcement agencies and the National Security Division, either responding to congressional inquiries, which was a lot of it, or supporting legislation in ways that would provide support to law enforcement and intelligence capabilities. Before that, I was in the private sector with a big defense company, and just before that, I spent time on Capitol Hill, in both the House and the Senate, as a chief of staff, a military legislative assistant, and counsel in various offices. I should say, before all that, I was on active duty in the Marine Corps, and I’m still a Marine reservist. I’ve now been in the Marine Corps for about 20 years and will continue as long as they keep promoting me, which, I will promote to colonel sometime next year.
Sam Tetlow
Amazing. I appreciate the Marine Corps, and the United States government, still believing you’re able to serve.
David Lasseter
It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Sam Tetlow
That’s amazing. You read about enrollment and active military numbers, and when you think about the reserves, you’ve got a unique perspective from working at DOJ and then being in the Corps. We’re fortunate to have you. So, really, thank you for playing a part. When I think about all the corners and pillars and verticals of the U.S. government, nuclear armament protection is something you think about from a deterrence and safety profile. We need talented, serious people in that corner.
David Lasseter
You’re right about that. And I won’t take the credit on the talented ones, there are so many of them in the federal government. But, as we both know from the work that you do, that work with and for the U.S. government, whether it is producing high-end technologies and capabilities or supporting on the services side, matters. I agree with you that the nuclear deterrence piece, whether it is policy or developing products to defend against threats, is some of the most critical work, and it can’t be done without organizations like the ones you and I both work with. So it’s important.
Sam Tetlow
Amazing. They don’t let just anyone get in that place. I know we were also trying to get on a call a few months back and you said, no, I’m busy, I’m at the War College. Is that part of your Marine Reserve work, or is that something separate?
David Lasseter
It is. You’ve probably heard of PME, professional military education. All military personnel, but especially in the officer ranks, generally have to complete a school at a particular rank in order to promote to the next one. For the O5, or lieutenant colonel, rank, moving from O5 to O6, lieutenant colonel to colonel, that school is War College. Each service has one, and I happened to be selected to attend the Army War College, which by many is believed to be the top one. It’s been a good experience, and I’m nearing completion. I do it as a distance learning program, so it’s actually about two years, quite a long time, but I’m currently doing that now and will finish at the end of July. So I look forward to that.
Sam Tetlow
Amazing. But you had asked about HGS.
David Lasseter
Yes. As you well know, but for those who don’t: what we do is provide strategic consulting and government relations services to clients, most of which are, broadly, in the national security space. We also do a fair amount of work in the biotech, biodefense, and medical countermeasure development space. A lot of that is sometimes U.S. government facing, but most of our clients have commercial applications. Some don’t, but most do, so they can thrive in either environment while often needing U.S. government support to propel their technology or capability forward. So we do a lot of work in that space, both in strategic consulting and in guiding how to interact with the federal government. And when we look at it, we look at both the legislative and executive branches: the funding agencies, obviously an executive branch function across the various departments and agencies, but we also utilize our experience on Capitol Hill, because every member of the HGS team has served in both the executive and legislative branches. We view being able to interact from a relationship standpoint, but also in development, whether it’s ideas or helping technology development, as requiring both. In our experience, interacting with one and not the other can be problematic, because you don’t want one trying to force the other to do something. You really want both the executive and legislative branches to be in agreement.
Sam Tetlow
Right on. It’s so interesting. So, technically, HGS is a registered lobbyist?
David Lasseter
Yes, we register for those clients we need to, and for the most part we register for all, because we like to adhere to federal law.
Sam Tetlow
For sure. Always important. So, as you think about your background and HGS’s provenance as a team and a firm, with your history in the active military and your judicial experience from DOJ, when you walk into a meeting or a room, what part of that really carries? Is it that you worked in the nuclear field for the U.S. Armed Forces, or that you have that judicial background? When you walk into a room or ask people to take a meeting, why do they do that? What is it about your background, and HGS as a firm, that is the unlock, that makes people want to engage with you and your clients?
David Lasseter
That’s a very good question. As we’d say in the Marine Corps, it’s situation dependent. Sometimes, if I’m going into the Pentagon, most of those engagements and opportunities probably come from having been a DASD and having interacted with personnel, uniformed or civilian, in the Department of Defense, who either knew me or, by extension, know someone, given that I previously served there as a Deputy Assistant Secretary. A similar thing could be true with the Department of Justice, although often DOJ is not as relevant, because dealing with investigations and prosecutorial decisions isn’t necessarily where you’re going and interacting on a regular basis. With Capitol Hill, a lot of it is based on relationships, but also on knowing how the Hill works. I referenced our team: we’re small but mighty, all of us having served in both the executive and legislative branches. We’ve served on both sides of the Hill and in multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat. So while we all have our own political views and leanings, we’re also able to identify the right members of Congress, or the right administrations, as needed. Getting back to the essence of your question, it really depends on who we’re going to see, on Capitol Hill or in the executive branch, and identifying the right way to engage with a particular organization.
Sam Tetlow
Amazing. That versatility, as you call it, arrows in the quiver to put into play for what the situation requires, there’s a lot that can be used in different situations as they come up. So it’s interesting, at least to me right now, with a lot of what’s going on with executive orders and the lawsuits coming back in response. The executive branch, in my experience, has traditionally taken actions that then work their way through Congress to be enacted into law. It seems now that a lot of movement is happening from the executive branch, and then the judicial branch is weighing in on whether those actions are lawful and what can be adjudicated. So, as we think about the world today, circa late March 2025, we’re coming up on 65, 70 days of the new administration. What do you see unfolding from here? How much is Congress going to get involved now that we’ve got a CR? How much is the executive branch going to continue to emphasize EOs? Where do you see the funding landscape going in the coming months, up until September 30th, the government fiscal year end?
David Lasseter
Well, I’ll first say that the executive branch has broad authority, and we see it in every administration. Whatever their priorities are, and rightfully so, they look to push them. Same with President Trump. I think the priorities have become pretty clear pretty quickly: government efficiency, modernization, and driving capability development to counter certain threats, whether domestic or international. So I’d say there will be continued development of those types of capabilities. I think it’s going to become clearer for the departments and agencies as more senior administration officials take their positions. We’re still going through the confirmation process for cabinet officials, so as the deputy secretaries, under secretaries, and assistant secretaries begin to fill out the ranks, some of the decisions to pause certain funding or re-evaluate priorities that’s happening now will start to become clearer. And I would imagine you’ll still see really robust U.S. government funding for researching, developing, testing, evaluating, and procuring capabilities for companies like the ones Grant Engine works with, and that we work with. That will happen. Just like with any new administration, it takes many months to fill these positions out. Even for those that aren’t Senate-confirmed positions, they still go through quite an evaluation, no matter who the presidential team is, because you’re putting a lot of trust and confidence in individuals. You want to evaluate them, whether from a security clearance perspective or to make sure the individual’s priorities are in line with the administration’s priorities. So I think that will all bear itself out over the next few months.
As it relates to funding, while most folks, especially outside Capitol Hill but even those on it, don’t want a continuing resolution, getting through FY25 funding I think is a positive thing, because it now moves the government to a couple of things on the horizon. The first is the reconciliation package, or a couple of reconciliation-related bills that Congress will move to. Some of this will incorporate the tax reform that President Trump successfully pushed through in 2017. There will likely be border funding, but then there will be a fair amount of defense funding. And in the defense funding, I think we’ll see a lot of research and technology dollars going to providing capabilities broadly to the Department of Defense, which trickles down, as you know, Sam, to cover a number of areas. There are multiple under secretaries within the Department of Defense that will all see priority areas funded. But that will take time. At some point it will come out in RFPs and other vehicles that companies we both work with will look to submit proposals for, and hopefully win opportunities to work with the federal government in developing very meaningful capabilities and technologies.
Sam Tetlow
Nice. That’s good context. It just takes time for that budget allocation, however different or the same, to make its way to the street.
David Lasseter
Yeah. And by the Constitution, the budget is supposed to be out the first Tuesday in February every year. Rarely does an administration meet that, Republican or Democrat. But it’s also evident, and based in historical fact, that a new administration, especially with a change in party, gets time to reevaluate. There was an FY26 budget process happening under the previous administration, and, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, the Trump administration is not going to follow the budget the Biden administration came up with, just like the Biden administration wouldn’t have followed the budget I would have been working on before the change in administrations, when I was in the first Trump administration. So those things will happen. What I’m hearing is probably a mid-May timeframe for the budget coming out. It could be what they call a skinny budget, where it doesn’t get down into the details and they allow the departments to flesh that out over time. It could also be a larger budget submission, like we’d normally expect in the February or March timeframe. But it’s May. And then, with that, you really begin in earnest the congressional budget and appropriations process, which will get into full action in the May, June, and July timeframe and go through the rest of the fiscal year. I do reiterate, though, that the reconciliation package will really be the next focus, along with ancillary, although not truly ancillary, issues like the debt ceiling and other things that will make their way into that package or pass alongside it.
Sam Tetlow
Interesting. So along those lines, we were talking about a really important client we mutually have, Captura, which is one of the luminary case studies we’ve got on our website. We were talking in general about the government annual calendar, or in this case BARDA, and how you really need to be talking to BARDA in the late October to December timeframe, if I remember correctly, because the door really shuts on that fiscal year in the early spring. So if you’re not talking to them by the end of the year, you can miss it. That was a really interesting insight you shared, because you’re talking to the team inside BARDA regularly. That’s a pearl of insight that we’re now using to help align clients. You need to categorize your real effort into that calendar timeframe if you want to think about BARDA. But along those lines, when we think about a budget that’s either skinny or stacked in a roughly May timeframe, do you see the capacity to still help influence what goes into that budget? And if so, when do you need to start that effort for a client to socialize with the legislative branch that writes it?
David Lasseter
Yeah. If I had the direct answer to that question, we’d be a much larger organization. Again, it’s going to be based on the situation, whether it’s the administration, the personnel involved, or the departments and agencies. As you probably recognize, the Department of Defense tries to have a multi-year plan, loading priorities into what they call the FYDP, the Future Years Defense Program, so they try to have multiple years of planning in place rather than doing it all against a single year. They’ve got a plan that already exists, and a lot of that for DoD will likely remain the same under the current administration, just because there are certain weapon systems and capabilities that need to be developed over time. When it comes to informing a budget submission from the executive branch, from the various departments and agencies, it takes either direct communication with them, from an outside, commercial, or private-sector perspective, or even from some public-oriented clients. If it’s Congress, to your question, that can also be a multi-year conversation, but it’s really something that happens in the fall of the previous year, in our experience. So you want to educate and inform in the September, October, November, and December timeframe for the appropriations or authorization process, call it the budget process, that kicks off in January, February, March, and April of the next year.
We’d also say you can inform the next year’s budget through prior legislation. If you think about defense, the National Defense Authorization Act passes every year, 60-plus years running, one of the only things, probably the only thing, that passes every year in Congress. Through it, you can inform the next year’s budget, or what Congress believes should be the priorities the Department of Defense pursues, focuses on, or even stops focusing on. Congress can have a say there and provide pressure, positive or negative, on the next year’s budget process. That happens through the fall and into the winter and spring of the next year, if that makes sense.
Sam Tetlow
Yeah. And if I had a timeline to throw up, it might be easier, which we do, it would probably be easier to see that visually for those watching.
David Lasseter
Yes.
Sam Tetlow
That would definitely be useful. And people can always call you to get that. How would someone reach out to you? Would they just go to the website, or do you have an email?
David Lasseter
The website: horizonsgs.com, or horizonsglobalsolutions.com. We’re also on LinkedIn. On the website, we have links to email our team directly.
Sam Tetlow
That’s really easy to do. Excellent. Well, you mentioned that if you had perfect knowledge, you’d be a larger organization, but one of the things that has really shone a light in a positive way is that being small can be really effective. And small is a relative term. You’ve got Stephen Boyd and Julie on the team, so you have real depth. Being small and nimble, able to go to places and react quickly, you have been fantastic as we’ve worked with clients. That real-time response is excellent, and it’s rare in that D.C. world. It makes a difference to be able to talk to the client, get some spec on what something means, feed that to the constituent on the government side, get that feedback, and feed it back to the client so they can act and respond. That communication loop, being small, in my experience, equals really effective, and that matters greatly.
David Lasseter
It’s something we talk about regularly internally, because we do pride ourselves on being very close with the client. There are some organizations similar to ours that do great work, but their focus may be exclusively on Capitol Hill, just trying to get dollars for clients, which is obviously the focus of that client and that organization. That could be the best fit for them. For us, we just want to be involved as much as the client wants us to be. If that’s strategy development, identifying lines of effort, programs, departments, agencies, or funding opportunities, we want to do all of it, because at the end of the day we want our clients to succeed. If they succeed, we succeed. Our clients, whether it’s CEOs or those who run programs for them, have us on text message, email, or a phone call in a moment’s notice. So we’re very deeply involved in their strategy, if they want us to be, and also very deeply involved in their relationship management with U.S. government folks on both the executive and legislative branches. We’re an efficient team. And the interesting thing about us is that we all work on all of our clients, so we’re all fully informed about the client work. That enables a more devoted capability. Up to now, clients have enjoyed that, and we hope they continue to.
Sam Tetlow
Absolutely. I’ve always been impressed by the effectiveness of a dedicated small team that is knowledgeable, experienced, smart, and capable. Those individuals are going to be miles more effective than a behemoth organization, because it comes down to one or two people at the end of the day, in my experience, no matter how big or small the firm is.
David Lasseter
Yeah. And Sam, you referenced Stephen and Julie. I should say, we’ve got a great small team. My wife, Julie Lasseter, is part of the team. She has worked in the House and the Senate, has worked for Democrats, and worked in the Obama administration in the Department of Defense. We obviously differ politically, and I should be the first to admit it. There are certain things that I personally advocate for and support, and some that she does, and we find common ground for our clients. I should also mention our other business partner, Stephen Boyd, a longtime, close friend. We’ve known each other as far back as law school, where we attended the University of Alabama School of Law together. We were both chiefs of staff on Capitol Hill in the House, the senior House staffer role, and then we worked at the Department of Justice together. So, longtime friends. That’s part of it. Our organization is almost like a family. And another team member, Nikki Davis, was my executive assistant in the office of the DASD for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. She’s worked in half a dozen offices in the Pentagon and knows how to navigate that behemoth quite well. So we are a family, but also an organization that works directly and closely with all our clients to benefit their priorities.
Sam Tetlow
Interesting. It’s interesting you say that, that you’re truly bipartisan in ways that, well, that’s pretty powerful.
David Lasseter
Yes, we are. When we watch 60 Minutes, or Fox News, or some other news, we definitely have a difference of opinion.
Sam Tetlow
I love it.
David Lasseter
It’s great. There are things we each support in certain administrations and not in others, and it’s a healthy discussion. It also allows us to understand, when we go into congressional offices, that we might send certain team members and not others. We make it a point, and this is advice for clients too: know your audience. You don’t want to go and advocate for certain things when you know that member of Congress or that office may not support it, or you just have to articulate it in the right manner. Thankfully for us, we don’t do a lot of issue work. Our work is really about good technologies and capabilities that the U.S. government is either seeking or doesn’t yet know about, and we want to make sure they learn about it.
Sam Tetlow
Excellent. To say this country is divided politically would be the understatement of the decade, and you all do it right. That’s the fabric of the firm, to me. It speaks to being functional, actually being able to truly interact with all partisan elements of the U.S. government. That’s just really interesting.
David Lasseter
Well, our votes counteract each other. When we lived in D.C. and Northern Virginia, my vote didn’t matter much, and now Julie’s doesn’t matter in Alabama. So we cancel each other out every time.
Sam Tetlow
Good deal. So we should really do these in a longer format. We’ve got a few minutes left on the clock, but we should do this again later. One of the things I’m always curious about, and you have excellent exposure to it: we talked about how to communicate into the government and back to clients. What are some of the things, insider tips or pro approaches, to driving a relationship with individuals in decision-making or influencing roles, getting champions? How do you get access? What do you ask them? What are some insider secrets to getting traction and interest, and ultimately being able to turn on funding?
David Lasseter
Well, Sam, the first thing, which would be obvious to you and should be obvious to others, is that you’ve got to have a solution to a problem. You have to have a good product or technology. If you have those, you’re automatically in a good spot. If you don’t, then it’s probably worth revisiting what you’re trying to do or provide. From a relationship and interaction standpoint, it’s about being able to articulate what that is in an effective manner. We talked about this before: know the audience, know the environment you’re walking into, and make sure you’re discussing it in a way that provides benefit, not just, hey, I’m here asking for help. We make it pretty clear to our clients, especially if we’re going onto Capitol Hill, that we don’t want to go in and, the first time we’re meeting someone, ask for something. Most people, in any environment, don’t really want that. They want to know you, know a little bit about you. Hopefully you’re a constituent, or in the state or district they represent. If not, you want to make sure you’re providing a product, solution, or technology tied to something they care about. So it’s important to establish that relationship, build some credibility, and then, at the appropriate time, if you need support, you can go back and ask for it. Maybe you’ve become a subject matter expert for them, or a confidant, someone they can reach out to for guidance or just to bounce ideas off of, which we are for many of our friends on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. They may reach out to get our perspective, because for us, we’re 50-plus years of experience in the federal government across both branches. Some of it is just being there, having been there, helping make decisions or evaluate things. You just don’t know it until you’ve done it. Thankfully, we’ve been blessed with opportunities in the federal government that I never would have expected as a young captain leaving the active-duty Marine Corps, but have been fortunate to have due to circumstances and opportunities.
Sam Tetlow
Amazing. So, it’s going to sound like a strange question, but it stands to reason: building relationships takes time and effort. Is that worth it? That sounds like a strange question because it’s all of what you do, but as I think about companies that maybe haven’t engaged a talented lobbying firm or a strategic consultant like you, I imagine one of their questions is: okay, that sounds like a lot of time and energy. Do you get real yield out of making that investment in time and resources?
David Lasseter
Yes, I think you do, and our team would agree. You can also do harm by not being prepared and going in asking for something right off the cliff. You can actually do serious, long-term harm to your ability to interact with a congressional office, or even a department or agency. It’s smart, if you don’t have the folks internally who can help strategize around that, to hire them. I know it’s a cost, and a lot of times, especially for smaller organizations, it’s a cost that hits hard. Do I hire a firm to do this, or do I just hire another scientist or technological wizard to punch out zeros and ones on something? But if you don’t have that support, some of it is actually what I’d describe, as a Marine, as gray-zone activity. It’s the space between developing and submitting a proposal and submitting an appropriations request, to use those as two lines of effort. You want to understand how to get to that first step before you take it. Sometimes folks do it and run the risk of imperiling themselves for the long term, because they’ve come across as inexperienced or uneducated. If they do that, they may have a great technology, but sometimes the perception is: well, if they don’t know what they’re doing in communicating their priorities, or in submitting an appropriations request, chances are they may not know how to do whatever it is they say they can do. So we try to make it clear to our clients and prospective clients: let’s manage that strategy and plan up front, so we’re not imperiling or harming whatever it is we’re trying to get to in the long term.
Sam Tetlow
That’s really interesting. You think about interacting with agencies, and, we’re right at time, but I hear people talking about engaging with the FDA if you’re going to have a clinical submission. They want to talk to you. They’ll inform you, open up that insight about what’s going to work and what’s not. And the U.S. government is the largest, at least in the Western world, the single largest organization, right? Not engaging with them cuts off a giant reservoir of insight. The military will, if you’ve got a clinical product, help you with the FDA. They’ll help you with reimbursement. So not to go there, you’re really cutting off the largest source of advice, guidance, and, once you get your product, a customer.
David Lasseter
Yeah. Well, it’s validation too. For many investors and many of our clients, they want to drive investment into their company, and potentially opportunities to work with others, to sell their products or their company. What better validation is there than the United States government, either investing financially or through a CRADA or some agreement? What better validation is there for your product or capability? That’s why we enjoy working so much with the federal government through our clients, because we understand the value and importance of what our government does, and how it can help develop products that ultimately get down to the taxpayer, to the constituent, in some shape, form, or fashion.
Sam Tetlow
Right on. Those are true statements. Exciting. Well, thank you, David, for your service on behalf of our taxpayer dollars, but also thank you for being a resource for our current and new clients. The government and the military can be, I won’t say a scary place, but an unknown, and through you, you make it accessible. So, are you open to having conversations with clients if they just want to have a discussion about opportunities? Or do they have to really engage and sign an engagement letter with you before you start working with them and having those conversations?
David Lasseter
With any potential client, we certainly want to have an initial conversation to make sure we fit with one another. We’ve had multiple potential future clients where we both agreed we may not be the best fit. So we definitely want to be able to analyze that and have a discussion or two, or three. Sometimes we have months-long discussions with prospective clients before we agree to work together. So we’re always happy to do that. And if we’re not the right fit, we know a number of organizations that could be a better fit. We welcome those discussions with those who want to have them. I think it would be remiss, and hopefully I’ve said it, but I’ll say it again: working with organizations like Grant Engine, that’s a type of capability we don’t have. That’s why, with a couple of the clients you’ve referenced, that’s what we’d like to do with you, because we don’t have to try to bring on the capability to do what you all do. We can just say we’ve got expertise with a great firm that does this. We offload that expertise or desired capability onto you all. So we welcome further discussions with anybody who feels they could use our services.
Sam Tetlow
Good. We’ll keep our eyes open for you. The last question I’ve got is: if we could leave folks with why they should think about doing this now, versus after the new budget on October 1st or next year, why would you say people should act now versus saying, hey, I’m just going to wait until the dust settles, that utopian concept that’s always going to be here next time?
David Lasseter
Well, for some, they may have to wait, and we recognize that, based on allocation of resources and doing right by their business leadership. But to your question, as a practical matter, if you’re not doing it now, you run the risk of just not being prepared. You really do want to have the conversations, whether inside the funding agencies, the executive branch, or Congress. You don’t want to do that once decisions have already been made on funding. One, because you want to be able to influence some of those funding decisions, whether through policy or programmatic influence. You want to be able to have those conversations to say, these are the things we believe are important, we know you’re trying to solve a particular problem, consider this technology or this type of program. If you wait, you run the risk of losing a year, honestly. If you’re not involved in the process now, you’re probably going to have to wait until next year, even if the budget isn’t out. You still want to be involved. As I mentioned, I’ve spent three of the last four weeks in D.C. with clients, interacting on both Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon on certain priorities. If I’m not doing it now, they possibly are going to have to wait until next year. It doesn’t mean they will, but there’s a chance they could.
Sam Tetlow
Yeah. As I like to say, a shift happens. It’s not, I’ll do it next year, I’ll do it in two years, and then two years becomes never, and you never get out of the blocks. So it makes total sense.
Okay, excellent. Well, we planned well, but the only thing we fell short on was time, so we need to have you back and do it again, maybe with a longer format. This has been fantastic. We’re all better off for having you in the seat, and in the Marine Corps reserve. So thank you for all you’re doing, and thank you for being a part of our taxpayer dollars, hard at work.
David Lasseter
Appreciate it. It’s an honor and a pleasure. I’m a son, and grandson, and so on, of multiple military officers, all having served in foreign wars, so it’s part of my DNA, and I’ll do it until I’m not allowed to anymore. It’s also been a pleasure working in other parts of the federal government, which I believe is essential to the fabric of our country, and to ensuring that our departments, agencies, and the taxpayer have the things they need to survive a conflict, but also to propel the country forward successfully.
Sam Tetlow
Well, thank you. It’s great to have you. Appreciate it very much, David. We’ll have you back, and if you’re up for doing that again, we’d love to have you.
David Lasseter
Absolutely, Sam. Thank you. Look forward to it. A pleasure. Thanks again, it’s really good to connect.
Sam Tetlow
Cheers.
David Lasseter
Bye.