Military contractor thinking ahead, diversifying

TAMPA BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL BY ALEXIS MUELLNER, EDITOR

Since 2001, Celestar Corp. in Tampa has grown as a federal defense contractor offering technology assessment and evaluation, systems engineering, and operations support. Now, talk of sequestration - formulaic budget cuts to federal defense spending amped forward thinking about how to diversify. That accelerated our plans, said CEO Gregory Celestan. With plans to spin off technology-related units,

Celestar is working in app development, events strategy, and content management and consulting, with innovation an overall theme. The effort provides a broad roadmap for how to diversify, not only to firms focused on defense, but also to small- to mid-sized companies looking for strategies to grow businesses beyond a founding core.

Celestar has established a tech new unit, KnowledgeM.

CELESTAR: Facebook charity vote app soon to debut

media early adopter, having posted more than 25,000 Tweets. Her feed (@Chari_S) has more than 4,300 followers and shes posting constantly about everything from social media skill development to management training to Google Catalogs. Among her goals: generate relevant, meaningful content. She monitors more than 500 blogs a day locales such as Mashable, TechCrunch, HubSpot, and Business Insider. Her work is falling under a new Celestar unit, KnowledgeM, which focuses on technology in an allencompassing way, and that eventually, is likely to be spun off. The unit is also a website with a goal to educate, entertain, enlighten, or at a minimum, not bore you to tears, the site reads. We love to help people and brands become smarter in the world of social media. Innovation is a key theme. To that end, the company will spend $45,000 to bring former Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPI,) Chief Evangelist, venture capitalist and best-selling author Guy Kawasaki to the Tampa Convention Center in February. Charging $75 a piece, and $800 for tables, the goal is to at least break even, Strandberg said. For that, they need an audience of 500. But it is access to speakers like Kawasaki that falls in line with the content quest Celestar envisions. The company will also soon launch its first app for Facebook called CharityVote, now in final beta testing. The software creates a poll, in which companies choose a handful of nonprofits to compete for a specific chunk of money. Facebook fans vote on how donations should be allocated, and everyone gets money and buzz. The brand selects three charities and gets exposure, plus it drives fans to the Facebook page of the brand, Strandberg said. In order to vote for the charity they support, visitors must first like the brands Facebook page. The pricing model is based on the size and

Celestars Social Media Marketing Manager Charise Strandberg is monitoring 500 blogs a day for content.

LEADING THE CHARGE Earlier this year, Celestan hired Charise Strandberg to be the companys first social media marketing manager. A former Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce executive, she is a social

scale of the company giving away the money. CHANGES IN CULTURE AN EVOLUTION Integrating whole new lines of business at a federal defense contracting firm was daunting. Strandberg said. The event has been one way to get everyone involved, she said. Were making it fun ringing a cowbell when a table gets sold. Very few federal contractors can simultaneously serve the federal and commercial marketplace effectively under one roof, said Noel McCormick, president of Clearwater engineering and design firm McCormick Stevenson and president of the Florida Federal Contractors Association. They tend to divide themselves up, operating independently as a federal service division with different rules, he said. The federal marketplace demands those of us who serve the federal government behave just like the federal government and act large and slow, not what the commercial marketplace

demands. The potential for sequestration is causing angst, he said, despite many unknowns. Its not thoughtful surgery, McCormick said. Those who can cut should, he said. This forces them to take action they might not otherwise and good companies tend to land on their feet. Celestar has a great deal of talent and strength. The defense industry is nearing $16 billion in revenue in Florida and is rivaling tourism and agriculture, and thats often misunderstood, he said. CORE BUSINESS NOT GOING AWAY We want to stay in the federal market, its a good niche and we provide quality service, Celestan said. Its just a good business practice to take all the great skills we utilize to support the Department of Defense and apply that knowledge and expertise to the commercial market. One of the motivations to diversify is to have a role in work force

development, said Celestan, whose own firm employs 150. Celestan, who will be the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce chairman for 2013, said the mantra at a recent retreat was make Tampa cool for business. We want to keep this talent we have, and keep outflow of talent from USF and UT, he said. Part of that is working on ways to attract capital to Tampa with the goal of making it a research and development hub like Austin, Texas or Raleigh-Durham, N.C.