Florida VBOC Team’s COVID-19 Response
The Florida VBOC staff consists five very talented people with very diversified skill sets working from our offices at Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida. When the college closed down for more than two months in March 2020, the VBOC had to pivot, like businesses nationwide did. We immediately geared up to work from home and continued supporting veteran clients with their business start-ups and expansion plans.
One of the greatest needs of VBOC clients was financing their businesses and making payroll for their staffs during the COVID-19 shutdown. Florida VBOC Business Analyst, Janice Benggio, utilized her IT/website skills to add a section to the VBOC website entitled COVID-19 Resources. She has updated on a real-time basis on government and non-government financial resources that greatly aided not only our clients but also anyone we interacted with that could benefit from the information. The other four VBOC team members Brent Peacock/Director, John Miller and Jamie Shepard/Business Analysts, and Savanna Davis/Administrative Assistant, assisted Janice in keeping the website content current and viable.
With virtual collaborative input from the team we were able to find, evaluate and purchase licenses for a virtual meeting tool, as well as cameras and headset/microphones to use for virtual Boots to Business training as Florida military installations remain closed.
The surprise for the team was that instead of a greatly reduced workload, a lot of people who were off work or struggling to keep their businesses open realized that we were a valuable resource and continued to seamless work at full capacity from home. We continued supporting our existing and new clients in an effective and professional manner and received many favorable comments for our support. The VBOC team met at least weekly for online teleconferences and met with the Office of Veterans Business Development remotely for the weekly national teleconferences.
We met the challenge of effectively working from home for an extended period with only a few hours’ notice, and on 1 June 2020 we transitioned back into office work with hardly a ripple.
Written by John Miller, Florida VBOC Consultant
June 8, 2020
The Florida Veterans Business Outreach Center is funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the US Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.
