SBA Success Story: Crystal Clear Maintenance

I'm Douglas Craft. I'm the owner of Crystal Clear Maintenance. Crystal Clear Maintenance is a janitorial service operation and maintenance, landscaping, tree service. We are very diverse company. When I graduated from college, I did eight years of military duty and I did 10 years of professional football. And then I retired and that's where I started my business. It was just my wife and I cleaning condos and homes in Angelfire, New Mexico. We hired more people and we moved to Taos, New Mexico. And that's when I learned about the sba.

The best way to capsulate what the SBA does in providing a service to our business community is we target the three technical counseling, access to capital, and government contracting. We met Doug Kraft and we talked about his business. He was doing about $80,000 a year. We asked him if he would file for his veteran benefits. He hadn't, which about 65% of our veteran community has not done. So we got him to file to get what he earned and that was a service disability, which then opened the door for his business. Fear Service is able to vet 3% of federal contracting opportunities are mandated to by law. And that was a major game changer for Doug Kraft and his company. His first contract was in Denver, Colorado, cleaning the federal building. At least a $1.2 million contract that he secured. And since then he's been growing as a service able veteran. We're able to provide access to capital with a lot of our lenders for him. But more importantly, contracting opportunities through our eight program.

Here are some other criteria that you need. The 8 business development program is geared toward helping those businesses that are considered socially and economically disadvantaged owned and it's a nine year program. And throughout the nine years, these businesses get more of a one on one assistance from the sba, from a business opportunity specialist such as myself, and also through the program, they have the opportunity to be awarded federal government contracts without competition in some situations or limited competition.

When I got with the SBA and I got into the eight program and into the federal contracts, that was really a game changer because I was able to successfully work with the federal government and also it's open doors for state and local government. If I didn't utilize SBA resources, I wouldn't be nearly as successful as I am now. But since I met them, they grew my business tremendously here in New Mexico and I was able to go to other states and be successful as well.

I think in Doug's case, he's been a real strong example of what the SBA can do. To assist a veteran in business. We worked with him through the Small Business Development Centers and with the Veteran Business Outreach center and regrouped his company to make it stronger. It launched his business from $80,000 a year to over 25 million a year. And so I think my advice to any man or woman getting out of the military is there are resources out there to assist them to move on with their life. After military service, I went years all.

On my own trying to figure this thing out by myself until I realized that I have help and I just need to understand where I need to go and get those resources. So I think if anybody want to go in business, the thing that I would do, I would reach out to sba. Their doors are always open. They are always helpful and knowledgeable. Even if you haven't started a business, you're thinking about starting a business. SBA would be my first choice.