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Manufacturing executive Kevin Connelly received a phone call Dec. 12 that he called the “greatest early Christmas present ever.”
On the other end of the line was a federal government contracting official with good news: Connelly's company, Sarasota-based shade and awning firm Apollo Sunguard, had won a contract to help assemble more than 180 electric car charging stations outside federal government buildings nationwide. Apollo beat out five other firms for the work, a project worth around $900,000.
But Connelly soon checked his Christmas cheer and replaced it with a dose of anxiety over the execution phase. That's partially because the work is a bit outside of Apollo's comfort zone in that the stations it will help assemble aren't the full-on awnings it normally builds for clients. This work, which Apollo will do in tandem with a Silicon Valley firm, is designed to protect the charging equipment from the elements.
“We have to perform, and we have to fulfill the product requirements,” Connelly says. “We can't be a source of embarrassment to the contract officer.”
It's not that Connelly doubts his firm's capabilities. But the worries underline both the pressure and opportunity at stake with this project for Apollo, a firm he's presided over since 1997.
Apollo, with 15 employees, has tried to rid itself of the recession for a few years — with inconsistent results. Annual revenues, says Connelly, have been stuck at around $2 million. Some forays into new business lines and new products, such as a line of awnings for homes and residential communities, have yet to take off like Connelly hoped or expected.
More frustration: The company's flagship creation, shaded awnings and canopies made of steel and high-quality fabric, for everything from parks and bleachers to basketball courts and parking lots, is considerably more accepted overseas. Shades, for instance, are big sellers in Europe and Brazil.
But not even sunny Florida has fully embraced the concept, though the firm has done a lot of business in the state. Clients on the Gulf Coast include Hillsborough County, where it covered basketball courts; Collier County, for its parks; and Sarasota schools and city buildings, including the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. The firm's shades and awnings also hang from Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, spring training home of the Baltimore Orioles.
“It's really popular in other parts of the world, but it's not big in the U.S.,” Connelly says. “But we feel there's a real need for shade.”
Connelly hopes the new government work will not only provide a financial boost for Apollo, but will also offer exposure to more potential clients, in and out of the government. He says he will approach some of the officials at the federal buildings he meets to “inform them of the benefits of shade” that Apollo can provide.
Even now, with other new business on the horizon, Connelly projects Apollo could reach $4 million in sales in 2014, double 2013.
Work together
The linchpin of that growth, of course, is the work with the feds, which comes through the Government Services Administration. Beyond revenue and exposure, the works also opens Apollo up to a new industry: electric vehicles.
Connelly says he's eager to tap that industry, given the battles he's waged to grow in other sectors. And the industry, sometimes maligned for its reliance on government subsides, could be enthusiastic for a new entity.
Apollo's big win, for example, was noted in a Jan. 14 blog post on Inside EVs, an industry news website. “Apollo Sunguard was a relative unknown in the EV industry,” the post states, “but perhaps that will change soon as it's the company that was just awarded a government contract to install 183 charging stations at various federal buildings throughout the U.S.”
John Lambie, who is working with Apollo on a shaded electric car charging station for the Florida House Learning Center in Sarasota, believes Connelly will do well in a new market. “He's always been a real innovator for shaded products,” says Lambie, executive director of the Florida House, a facility that helps builders and contractors incorporate water and energy conservation practices into their work. “He has demonstrated his commitment to it and kept working at it.”
Connelly researched the project in early 2013 and by May he had begun the request for quote application process. One advantage the firm held in the government point-scoring game to win bids is Apollo's service-disabled, veteran-owned small business designation. That got the firm some extra points, though Connelly earned them the hard way in the Vietnam War, when he was exposed to Agent Orange. (See related story, below.)
The firm also partnered with Campbell, Calif.-based ChargePoint in its bid to win the work. A Silicon Valley darling for its early entry in the electric vehicle industry, ChargePoint claims to have built the “largest and most open electric vehicle-charging network in the world.” That network, adds the firm, has more than 15,000 places to charge a vehicle on four continents.
ChargePoint and Apollo, says Connelly, will work together on the installation and distribution end of charging station project. The stations will be designed to charge two cars at the same time. Says Connelly: “We felt it was a symbiotic relationship.”
Break on through
To Connelly, the benefits of a shaded electric car charging station are obvious: Batteries don't do well in heat, so if a car is going to sit at a charging port for several hours, some shade would be a good idea. Connelly attended some electric car trade shows, and he's read multiple reports and industry studies on the heat issue.
Yet Connelly's shaded passion hasn't always translated to sales when it comes to traditional car parking lots. For instance, Connelly spent some time a few years ago targeting commercial real estate developers and shopping center landlords. Like electric cars, the pitch, on the surface, makes perfect sense: A cooler car is better than a hot one, especially in a Florida summer.
But Connelly hasn't been able to consistently break through in that market. The sticking point, he discovered, was the return on investment. Pretty sticky, too, given it costs about $100,000 to design and build a shade over a 40-spot parking lot. Says Connelly: “It's hard to convince the owners that they will see more business and do more sales if they provide shade for their customers.”
Apollo has won some business in that sector, including an 86-spot lot in Arizona. But the market where the firm has made the most sales over the last decade has been schools and counties. The company, says Connelly, will install its systems or retrofit other systems already in place. He estimates Apollo shades cover at least some part of 1,000 playgrounds in Florida. The company manufactures and assembles its shades from a 4,500-square-foot facility in Sarasota, off Clark Road.
A native of Long Island, N.Y., Connelly moved to Florida in 1991. In New York Connelly had two careers on the opposite side of the business spectrum. First, he worked for county government in eastern Long Island, where he ran the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency — that region's version of an economic development office. Connelly oversaw a program that distributed more than $500 million in industrial revenue bonds from 1981 to 1985.
Connelly then got into land development and commercial financing. He met the previous owner of Apollo Sunguard in 1997, when the businesses had essentially stalled. It only had one customer, recalls Connelly, and little in terms of fabric, steel or equipment.
Connelly bought the business anyway. “I fell in love with the concept of shade,” he says. “It's really needed.”
True patriot
The term American hero really means something when it's applied to Kevin Connelly, the president of Sarasota-based Apollo Sunguard.
Connelly retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served in the Vietnam War, where he helped train South Vietnam militia forces. But Connelly was exposed to Agent Orange in the war and he has since been treated for diabetes caused by the chemical. Connelly was awarded a Meritorious Service Medal for Vietnam, among other accolades.
Connelly is also a member of something else that fuels his patriotic pride: He's part of an organization, Florida Veterans for Common Sense, that hosts events that celebrate the life and words of Thomas Paine, a revolutionary solider and author. Paine wrote the famous line George Washington told his troops: “These are the times that try men's souls.”
Connelly himself has even dressed up like Paine in previous years for an annual dinner the group hosts. Says Connelly: “We like to say the sword of Washington could never have worked without the pen of Thomas Paine.”
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