This YouTube interview profiles Iam (Im) Christian Tucker, president and CEO of ILSE (Integrated Logistical Support Incorporated). It covers ILSE’s 30-year history (founded by Robert H. Tucker Jr.), the company’s role in New Orleans infrastructure and community, and how participation in the SBA 8(a) mentor-protege program helped ILSE expand (now ~50 employees and work in multiple states). Speakers emphasize Tucker’s leadership, commitment to other small businesses, and the firm’s certification as a small disadvantaged business that helps agencies meet the 13% FY23 contracting goal.
Questions this video answers
Integrated Logistical Support Incorporated.
Founded by Robert H. Tucker Jr., about 30 years ago (as of the interview).
Iam (Im) Christian Tucker.
About 50 employees.
The SBA 8(a) business development program (mentor-protege relationship).
Chapters
I love New Orleans because there is no city on earth like us. My name is Im Christian Tucker. I'm the president and CEO of ILSE Engineering. ILSE stands for Integrated Logistical Support Incorporated. We are civil engineering company Full sweep. Construction companies can't build what they're building horizontally or vertically without having a set of plans that actually work. We're the ones that make the pictures go.
It's very, very evident that ILSE is passionate about the communities in which they work. They're participants in not just the design, the construction, but the overall impact and incorporation of that project into the community.
The company was started 30 years ago now, as of this year by my father, Robert H. Tucker Jr. He was a pioneer in New Orleans history, was the first African American aide to Mayor Moon Landrieu, Mitch Landrew's father, and he helped to integrate New Orleans. We're a city that floods. While he was not an engineer and I'm not an engineer either, let's take our knowledge of government contracting, our knowledge of what's needed around here, and merge those two together to figure out how we can create a company that can.
Really help in New Orleans. We're a major cultural town. Our industry is tourism. We live and die by the very, very rich cultural history that we have here. That community is in need of attention, of investment, of I was a Baton Rouge police officer.
I wanted to go work narcotics and he was like, it's time for you to come back into the family businesses.
I've known IM since she was in the womb because I worked with her mother and her father in their businesses.
But it's a legacy of business and business growth and entrepreneurship in my family.
The 8A business development program, that's where we got started. It's not designed to help the small business owner grow and develop and become engaged with doing business with the federal government. She wanted to enter into a mentor protege agreement with a firm that she.
Thought could support her and having them to help, even mediate sometimes in difficult situations has been everything. They're your advocate.
So she goes in knowing what she needs and she knows what she wants to do and she is not going to take anything less.
Getting into a bonafide mentor protege relationship by the SBA in the 8 program seriously helped us to be able to gain access to doors that we otherwise would not have been able to gain access to.
Her role as a certified eight firm also certifies her as a small disadvantaged business, which means she is in a position to help the federal agencies meet the 13% goal that we have for fiscal year 23.
Being a business that's a minority business and it's difficult for a minority owned business. That's why the 8A program exists.
ILSI is really that New Orleans champion, that working on a project with you, you know, you're not just getting great service, you're getting somebody who really, really cares not just about that project, but about the property next to it and the city in general.
It's my motto always, you take care of those that take care of you. That being able to take care of people has always been part of the service of this family and definitely this company as well.
IM is not one that says, okay, I'm going to get all I can and can all I get. Rather, she looks to see how she can support other small businesses and the community.
I would like for my clients to know I'm always going to give you the truth, whether it's hard or not. I'm always going to tell you what I can do and what I can't do. And I think them knowing that they can take my word to the bank means everything.
Whether it's attention to detail, just their overall accountability to do what they say they're going to do, ultimately that ties back to working for a company that people believe in and also one that has a strong culture.
To be a company now with 50 people to have work in different states, thanks to the 8A program is a blessing, you'll see.
Not only professionally are they top notch, they've been super helpful, personally accessible, and again, great advocates and professionals. On any project they've worked on, it's been a joy to work with them. To be completely honest, and I don't.
Say that lightly, this is her city, this is her home and she wants this city to be better.
She's just again, it's contagious. Her love, her energy, her passion towards whatever she seems to be directing her focus on at any given time.
I am not surprised at all that she is our small business person of the year.
