Randy Sheppard, a 20-year Air Force veteran, founded RSAE Labs to make cargo-tracking sensors for global logistics. COVID-19 tanked revenue in early 2020, but SBA loans through a Veterans Business Outreach Center helped him avoid layoffs and pivot to social-distance monitoring devices.
Questions this video answers
May 2, 2022.
February 2020.
20 years.
Five.
Chapters
I'm Randy Sheppard. I'm the CEO and founder of RSI Labs. What RSI Labs does is provide data in near real time for logistics movements around the world. That's information about cargo containers and their contents. If someone wants to know where a cargo container is, we can tell them, tell them what the quality is service was, whether it was mishandled, whether it's delayed, and also its contents. Temperature, humidity, shock, tilt, all these things deal into quality of service. So I was in the air force for 20 years, and my last assignment was at Tyndall Air Force Base. Put together a team there to work on some test facilities for electronic combat. And we transitioned out of the Air Force as a group. There was five of us that actually transitioned and over the last four years have basically been developing the two product lines of global Sentinels for cargo tracking containers and mist associated with the wireless sensing devices. So it's February 2020 and things are going along great. Logistics was growing, orders were growing, and so we leaned forward and invested in some inventory. Then Covid came, logistics change, started having issues. One of our biggest customers wanted to cancel their order orders and we were in trouble. Hey, Randy, how you doing? Edward?
When COVID 19 hit and the EIDL loan was rolled out in the PPP loans, I got through my database and emailed all those existing clients who I thought would be eligible and urged them to apply. Even called Randy and said, look, this is what you need right now. Because I knew he had staff and the PPP loan would be perfect to keep his staff in place and employed. And the EIDL loan would be kind of a bridge loan to help them through to the time that they returned back to business.
The SBA really gave us the lifeline we needed. PPP loan and the EIDL loans, the timing of those couldn't have been better for us. And so rather than laying people off, we were able to pivot and do a new technology. While we're hoping and seeing logistics come back. And the technology was Covid related, basically doing social distance monitoring devices that we could put in manufacturing and industrial environments to help minimize the spread of COVID working with the SBA and our local VBoC, those loans really made the difference and the choices we had.
The VBoCS work exclusively with the veterans, active duty military, military spouses who want to start and grow a business. But working with businesses that are already established is one of the important things we also do. RSA Labs has lots of room to grow, and as they do grow, the SBA has long programs available for them, you know, to get working capital as they need to expand. So the future is nothing but bright for RSA Labs and other veteran owned companies that are already established. So we don't just help startup and then leave them, we stay with them the whole time through the entire phases of the business cycle.
Brent really is one of our cheerleaders. He's a bright spot in my day when I can sit down and give Brent an update on what we've been doing. And he's almost like a proud father, which he should be because the guidance and input he's had over the years is immeasurable. And then there's John Miller. What a great guy and what a wealth of knowledge. If he hasn't seen it, it probably hadn't been done in contracting. And so when I have a question, he's my go to guy. I look at the VBOC as a source of information. Their courses that they teach with boots to business and the resources they bring in are invaluable. And one of the best things is they're free.
I would tell any veteran or military spouse or active duty veteran who wants to start a business that you're really more prepared for entrepreneurship than you think. Veterans have learned through the military experience how to solve problems, how to do more with less, that whole battlefield repair mentality. And that really does prepare you for entrepreneurship. And there's nothing better than helping a veteran or military spouse to be able to grow that American dream of business ownership and contributing, hiring other veterans, becoming a cornerstone of the community, one small veteran owned business at a time.
