DAI Solutions founder and CEO Dr. Sheri Dougherty participated as a featured panelist at the Florida GovCon Summit 2017 on March 29-30 in Tampa, FL. In its second year, the summit brought together small businesses operating in Florida under the theme of “Teaming for the Bigger Federal Deals.”

“The event exceeded my expectations,” Sheri said. “The combination of targeted content, knowledgeable people and established industry connections made for a very productive few days.”

Sheri participated in the entrepreneur panel on the second day of the conference. Each of the panelists spoke briefly about their company structure, history and values, and then separated into individual groups to field one-on-one questions from the capacity audience.

Many of the questions for Sheri centered on how to take that first step toward starting a business, particularly directly out of the military. Sheri stressed the importance of understanding the federal contracting space before taking the leap, and suggested a wise approach might be to join an established company to learn the “contractor ropes” before going all-in on your own. A good primer for making that decision can be found in a DAI Solutions white paper, Ten Steps to Becoming a Federal Contracting One Percenter.

Based on her presentation at Florida GovCon, Sheri has been invited by the Small Business Development Center at the University of South Florida to speak at an upcoming event in May 2017.