How a Marine Veteran Turned $1.5M Debt Into a $219M Contract

So I look for veterans that are where we have about 60 employees and 80% of them are veterans.

And a lot of them have never had never done government contracting until they show up with us on their first day.

Chris Lovell is a dedicated mission-driven Marine Corps veteran and the founder CEO of Lovell Government Services. Drawing from over 24 years of military service, he bridges the gap between commercial medical innovators and federal health care systems to ensure America's warfighters and veterans gain rapid access to life-saving, cutting-edge resources. So I sat there and he said, "Who's the opportunity at the National Security Project?"

It's drugs and they need to package them a certain way. We're not really sure what to do with this and I said, "I know what to do with it. Give it to me."

Yeah. I said, "I'll do this." I said, "I'll bid this. I'll be the distributor and I know exactly what the government wants. We went out of our way to make that package happen with the FDA and we gave them the proposal with the exact package that they want.

“The exact dimensions the exact way. And that's what did it. In reality, we were the most expensive bit.”

Sorry, start of the company. No revenue is about a year and a half into it. And I was a sitting at the kitchen table. My wife's looking at me and she goes, "We really want to do this." The living your legacy podcast for those who live to live a legacy. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host again, Jason Langen.

And yeah, we have the privilege to speak to some of the best entrepreneurs around the country, the disruptors and the experts from doctors to, I mean, basically everything.

So we have a special guest here today looking flying from Penscola, what's your name and what's your business? I'm Chris Lovle on the owner founder and CEO of Lovle government services incorporated.

“All right, level government services. All right. So what's on all about?”

So Lovle government is a reseller of medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical products into the federal government medical supply system. So the VA hospitals, the Department of War, clinics, hospitals, Indian health services, hospitals and clinics, and any other government agency that uses drugs or medical supplies. Okay, so were you the guy buying up all the COVID stuff when we were looking for mass, that was you? So my customer is the federal government. We've expanded into the private sector, but yeah, during COVID, my customer was the federal government and it wasn't my fault. I was just a customer demand. So yeah, so they wanted PPE and a lot of other things. And so yes, I was buying some of that for the government.

Correct. All right. So what's the hardest part of your job? You know, give me the ins and outs because this is just not my wheelhouse. You know, I'm like, yeah, government stuff. I'm like the opposite direction. Yeah, I love I love my job is it's hard to say what's hard because the what I love about it is the difficulty and the solutions that people want. And so, you know, the challenges are that there's every customer's different right every vendor that wants to sell into the federal government has a different product. They have a different need and a different set of things are looking for.

And so levels tag is our tag line is custom solutions proven results. Yeah, and so we listened to the customer. The customers also we have three customers is the manufacturers of the product, whether it be a pharmaceutical or a medical device and serve for surgery application, neuromodulators, etc. You know, we listen to them. They have a certain need. They want to sell them to the government. The other customer we have is the federal government. There's certain things they're looking for. Yeah, certain ways they want to see the product presented to them so that it can easily picture it, right, so I did.

And then the other customer really the ultimate customer is the patient. So we always focus on all three with a primary focus on how does all this impact the patients health and we try to bring the best that the world has to offer in terms of private industry and healthcare. Yeah, to really take care of the veterans and actually do members to make sure they've got the very best care available to them through their providers.

“Yeah, great. So procuring. I mean, how does one get to do business with the government? And how much time do we have?”

I know you can just feel like a 50 hour podcast. No, so I was I'm retired Marine. I spent 24 years in the Marines. Okay, and so 70 those 24 years. I was a procurement official.

And you are like a direct using their knowledge in the civilian world, right? Yeah, it's it's a little different. It's kind of a flip, but the, you know, when you understand the how the government wants to buy in the systems, they need that the have to be aligned for the procurement to happen. Now the contract or the purchase order to happen, I just kind of use that to say, how do I how do I use my passion in the military to to continue doing that after I retired. And so. Yeah, I hire a lot of veterans with what's amazing is you talk about veterans asking like, hey, how do I use, you know, what I've learned in the military on the outside and what I'll say is really the core principles are really intangibles, which I learned.

I mean, yeah, you can learn supply and I did, I loved it, but it's really those intangibles like integrity, you know, work ethic, you know, courage, commitment, right? Being uncomfortable, or being comfortable being uncomfortable, I think that's the the biggest thing. So I look for veterans everywhere. We have about 60 employees and 80% of them are veterans and a lot of them have never had never done government contracting until they show up in the fuss on their first day.

Yeah, also systems, right? A lot of people talk about, yeah, we always have systems and kind of like SOPs that we have to follow.

“And so yeah, that's why they think hiring from the military is amazing because they're green at systems.”

Yeah, the greatest systems they want to, they want to, you know, if there's chaos or if there's on something's unorganized, it's just a nature of somebody in the military, you want to organize it. But I get, I just organize the chaos. And so that's what, what I love about veterans, that's why I hire them and surround myself by them because they just, they see something to go, I can make this better. Yeah, I can, I can improve this and I can, I can excel and do great things and it's amazing to watch and do it.

And so where do, what resource do you tap into to hire veterans for? Yeah, LinkedIn, LinkedIn's are big. Yeah, we use LinkedIn, there's a couple, you know, we use the, it's a skill bridge program that a lot of the military branches have. And it's where they'll allow, we're, we're a skill bridge, you got to certified company. And they'll allow a veteran who's transitioning out where they've done six years or 26 years.

You can do six months with a company and it's kind of get a feel for, you know, the private sector and really get really, like a six month job interview. So we hire most of our skill bridge participants, we hire. We'll do it. And you said you had 60 employees? 60.

Yeah, 60. Wow. So tell me about that growth.

I mean, it wasn't always 60.

It was, you know, were you solopreneur bootstrapping it and then you grew to that first employee, right? Or your business partner, right? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about that growth because 60, that's a congratulations on that growth.

So how did you start? Were you bootstrapping yourself? You have a business partner? Yeah. Well, my, I like to say my first business partner was my wife.

Yeah. Like no.

“People ask, you know, a lot of people's to Kevin and Larry, a lot of people say, hey, the most important business decision you'll ever make is who you're going to choose to be your spouse, right?”

You know, that's a right. So like it's important. And so, you know, I retired from the Marines and I was, yeah, I was bootstrapping it. I had done a couple different things. I had worked for Amazon.com, the fulfillment center, kind of supervisor manager for large, you know, fulfillment center in Pennsylvania.

Then I worked for, you know, the defense logistics agency briefly as, you know, doing distribution. And then a work for lexmerk International. Okay. So in copiers, printers. And so I was walking around, you know, traveling to the southeast and my job was to sell to the veterans affairs and all the military installations these copiers printers.

And I'd walk in and say, hey, what do you need? You know, like, man, we don't need copiers. We need a service disabled veteran on small business that knows what they're doing because we need to buy from them. And there's not enough out there. And the ones that are out there don't understand exactly what we need.

And so when home started level, that was July 18th of 2013.

And it didn't go as planned in the first, say, you're in a half.

Yeah, yeah. I had clients. Was it at first? No.

“So that entrepreneur journey, like, who, like, please come to the studios if it goes as planned?”

Well, I want to talk to you. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's, and I didn't know. I thought, you know, a sore company. Be easy.

You know, I said no one. But anyway, I think this is how you feel when you first start out. You're very, you know, you're very optimistic. You're really good. It's going to work.

And so when I, when I started, I had a couple clients and things were, were good. I was covering my operating expenses, right?

And then, uh, lost clients all at once. Um, not anything that I had done just that they were not interested in the process. Yeah. I call that the run of a bank almost. Yeah.

But you're just not your people, right? This is all your clients. All that once. And it's just like, well, they were kind of tied. It was a project for a hemostatic goals, which is up.

It's, you know, helps stop the bleeding for, like, trauma on the battlefield things. Yeah. And they were interested in developing, you know, they had a product. It was five team care proof. So there's a proof.

“Well, you have to, they were just trying to get into the government.”

I want to reassure the, you know, the folks they had a disagreement. And here I am with really no revenue. Uh, sorry, started the company. No revenue is about a year and a half into it. And, um, I was just sitting at the kitchen table and my wife's looking at me.

She goes, you really want to do this. And I said, I think I can. But this really is now fun. This really, this is painful. She goes, well, she goes, if you want to do it, you have to sell everything.

And I said, what do you mean? She goes, I understand there's a path of pathway to success. And she goes, she goes, if it means that we have to endure some suffering for a while financially, she doesn't look okay with it. So I had a, I had a, I had a love my truck.

We, we had a great, you know, a European sports car. And, um, she said, sell it. And she said, sell the camper, sell the, you know, the additional rental house that we had. She goes, she went out, found a, uh, a used mini van with about 30,000 miles on it. And we used that for about six months.

That conversation at the kitchen table. She goes, we're going to have yard sales. And she goes, and I want you to start selling some stuff. She took off her engagement ring. Yeah.

But on the table, she goes, sell that first. Wow. And I was like, wait, are you trying to tell me something? No, she goes, she goes, she goes, hey, um, she is just going to take the resources that we have. And so really, if it wasn't for page, level really wouldn't exist.

All of them 60, I tell the 60 employees. I say, you see, page around, if you see this is level, give her hug, tell her thanks. Yeah. It was really true, uh, initial investor. All right.

And so, um, so yeah, so, uh, struggle a little bit. Uh, so raising, raising money by yard sales. That people, okay. Right. Yeah.

Don't you, don't go to VCs. No. Go to your closet. That's right. That's right.

You know, but try it. And put a tag on.

“I think it's really kind of self reliance.”

You know, uh, it was kind of like we just, we didn't go to family. We didn't go to anybody. We didn't, we just kind of, you know, max the credit cards. We, you know, max out personal loans. We could sold assets and then just kept the company going, kept the vision alive with that.

And then there was a time really in the first, I probably year and a half after that.

Uh, it was, we were about a $1.5 million in debt.

Uh, trying to keep the company going, trying to cover expenses. And I had some bad contracts. Uh, you know, you learned by doing. And so I'd signed some bad contracts. And in some of the, in some cases, I was distributing for a loss.

So every time I sold something, I was distributing at a loss. So it's paying to do business for some of these companies. And so, um, it's, it's kind of a different version of beta play. Yeah, it, it is, it is, it is, it is beta play, but it's painful. But what happened was, um, you know, I had some good clients.

I had traction. I had a, you know, a pathway to, uh, you know, revenue, uh, you know, a good P&L, a good balance sheet. And it was just me. And I was really working out of a, um, a small office that I'd rented

in, uh, in an office complex downtown Pensacola. And it was just me. It was 2018. I think we were doing probably about three million and revenue a year. Just me, right, processing for about five different companies into the federal space.

And I had a call from, um, uh, someone who was with a pharmaceutical company. He said, hey, we have this opportunity. We're not sure what to do with it. And it's kind of like, it was like a war dog story. You, you've, you've never seen that movie.

War dogs. Yeah. Yeah. Jonah Hill. Great.

So it's a great actor.

“And so, so I sat there and he said, who's the opportunity?”

It's a national security project. It's drugs. And, you know, they needed packages in a certain way. We're not really sure what to do with this. And I said, I know what to do with it.

Give it to me. Yeah. I said, I'll do this. I said, I'll bid this. I'll, uh, I'll be the distributor.

And I know exactly what the government wants. I can, I read the TV. And I said, it's got to be this way. And so, my first contract.

And I first large breakthrough was a, a $219 million contract.

No. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, Mark Cuban, you know, I listen to what he says a lot, a lot of the, the great entrepreneurs.

I listen to what they say. And the thing that caught my attention, most of Mark Cuban is sales cure all. Well, it did. Yeah. It just changed my life.

And so, once I won any higher act and care off. Yeah. A sale. So once that happened, um, I thought, well, this is fun. Let's make it.

Let's make it more. Yeah. Let's keep this going. That's when I freaked out. Let me remind of it.

So that 20 is, it's a $219 million contract, right? But that's the contract size. How much are you taking off on the back end? Oh, that's, that's a great question. Because, yeah, it's not all, you know, you see that number.

Like, yeah, I mean, then you could like, if everything goes wrong, it's like, oh, shit, I just paid $219 to play again. You know, like, that's right.

So, so that was the profit on that was about $13 million.

Boom.

So that covered really all my, you know, debt.

Yeah. Did you buy, uh, some stuff back from the neighbors from your yard sale, right? Yeah. Maybe a new ring for page. Yeah.

“Oh, no, that's what's going to tell you.”

Yeah, so we did, we did do that. So her ring now is like fantastic. And so, you know, it's, um, it's very like, it's rewarding to go and say, hey, thank you page for like, um, you know, believing in the vision, right? Yeah.

And, um, you know, for better for worse, right? Yeah. Because I like to think that a business is like a marriage, too. It's going to be better. And it's going to be worse sometimes.

Yeah. And so really, it's like, you can't leave. You're going to stick with it to make it work. Yeah. We were, we were so happy to go do that.

It was several years back. We went and got her sick and pick out. Which, you know, let's have fun picking one out. Yeah. So yeah, her return on the investment in terms of the ring size was very good.

Hey. So there you go. So yeah. So it was good.

But yeah, so we, you know, with that, I started hiring people.

Yeah. Because I thought, well, this is going to be a, a big fulfillment. It was over six months. We delivered 253 trucks to truckloads. Yeah.

I kind of rewind rewind back because it's like, when you were like, I know it's to do that. You know, I know exactly what's going to do with that. Did you already was like, oh, my God.

“This guy is just holding a gold mine, right?”

Or you didn't know how big that contract was going to be. I knew the opportunity. I didn't think, you know, I thought there's the probability that we were, we're, we're when was, we're pretty good. The probability that we would win was pretty good.

It was probably 25% chance. Yeah. We competed against the biggest of the big boys in Farma, you know, Merck, Eli Lily. Gotcha. Gotcha.

And, and we beat them. We beat them. This is the kind of the story that I like to tell, you know, people are like, hey, how, you know, how do you, how are you successful? How do you, we look at a listen to the customer and the government wanted drugs in a certain

way. Drugs that had been around for 50 years. It was an antibiotic. Mm-hmm. Right.

Since sensitive, it's not classified. But it was an antibiotic. And the government wanted to package it in a certain way. And if you read between the lines, you'll see what they wanted. But the larger company said, well, we're going to give it to you in a bottle.

They did with bottles. We did it with a different. The exact package they wanted. We went out of our way to make that package happen with the FDA. And we gave them the proposal with the exact package that they wanted, the exact dimensions

exactly. And that's what did it. And in reality, we were the most expensive, did. Mm-hmm. And we owned that.

Because we gave the customer exactly what they wanted. Yeah. And so, so that was the win. And that's the spark. That's what I knew.

Okay. We're on this often. I'm on this often. Okay. Now I get why it's like that movie.

Yeah. What's the movie again? Worked off. Yeah. Okay.

Because he's bidding again. It's all the big competitors and everything. Yeah. But he bid way less. He would wait low.

Yeah. But he was the closest bidter. I think 50 million. Yeah. And that's based on a true story.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then by you took the opposite path on that. And you were the highest bidder.

But you didn't know that you were the highest bidder, right? I didn't. I didn't find out. I was the highest bidder until three years later. Mm.

And then the guy that gave you that contract where it didn't know what to do with it. Did he get anything kind of like as a broker of that or was he like, "Oh, my God. I just gave up this make up." Oh, no. No.

We. I love him like a brother. But we. We did a hand shake. Yeah.

I said, you know, Howard. Look, if we win this, I'm going to make sure you get your commission. The referral commission. There you go. And he did.

Yeah. He really did. Right on. And it was no paperwork. And that's, and he was another veteran.

And so that's what we love.

“That's what we love about, you know, the veterans because, you know, the handshake means”

some stuff. Yeah. So then after this deal, I guess the growth is 60 employees is, it's almost like that scene in Scarface. We're here in South Beach.

Right? Your ocean drives Scarface when he's counting the money and then the business is growing. I was right. That's right. I used that meme sometime.

Yeah. It was like that at first. And then, well, it was supposed to be reality.

It was a 600 and 50 million dollar contract.

Hmm. But because it kept on going and goes. Yeah. It was supposed to end doing. Yeah.

But what happened was, and I hired a lot of staff to do that. And then do some of the things you're already doing for medical surgical. But what happened was a little thing called COVID. Hmm. Right.

So the government shifted their priorities. And so they were supposed to buy three purchase orders. Three years worth of that. Two hundred and nineteen million. They only did the first year.

And so what happened was, I was calling him like, hey, you're going to place the second order. And the government's like, no, or all the money's going to be shifted and focus on, on COVID. Yeah, response. And so that's the thing about the government.

Governments are middle name. We understand the government. And the government does what the government wants with the funds. Yep. So if they say, we're not going to do a second year of this contract, they can do that.

So what we do is we just really had to adjust.

We never let anyone go during COVID.

We just adjusted how we sold to the government and how we onboard clients. Perfect. And so we grew from the baseline of three million. If you don't count that two hundred and nineteen million, we grew probably a thousand times from COVID.

Yeah, because of what we did to set our stuff up for success. And it was really higher the right people. And then invest in systems, even if you can't afford them, invest in them anyway. Prepare yourself for growth because, you know, it's.

I was never comfortable with it.

Just a flat line. Yeah, I want to make what I may last year. My thing was, well, if you've got the right system in place and you have the right people in place, you're going to grow exponentially every year.

“And that's what we've done since since COVID.”

Amazing. Well, how can people find you, man? Oh, we have a website's leveled government services incorporated. It's www.levelgov as in government.com. Okay.

And on our website, there's lots of different ways to reach us and purchase your products. All right. And then are you on LinkedIn? Can people follow you on LinkedIn? Yeah, I'm Chris level LinkedIn.

All right. And yeah, happy to connect. I get LinkedIn message all the time.

“Like, hey, we have a new product and can you help us sell to the government?”

And that's really the lifebloter, what we do. Perfect. Perfect. Well, it's been amazing. Have you on the show?

Talk about your journey a little bit. But yeah, you're about to hop in your session. And if you guys want to tune in more when his session and his show comes out. Right. Learn about this whole path on entrepreneurial journey where he's going to dive into

the details of that.

But it sounds like an amazing journey.

Congratulations on your journey. He's drawn your drill and everything. And that ring. Right? Yeah.

Shout out to Paige. Shout out to Paige. Shout out to all the wives out there, right? Right. Or all the husbands supporting their wives.

So it's really, you know, a couple's path, right? It's entrepreneurship and a business is like another kid. Right. You, you watch it from seed to growth.

“And hopefully they're going to turn out to be an amazing kid, right?”

Hopefully. Yeah. That's the goal. So for joining us, and we'll see you next time here on Living Your Legacy podcast. Cheers, everyone.