About Lauren Wittenberg Weiner
I was perfectly happy in my White House job when my about-to-be fiance got a call from his old boss. Would he like to move to Italy for a job with the US Navy? Suddenly, I found myself married (in 4 days!!), quitting my dream job, and heading off to start our married life in Naples. We had just watched Under the Tuscan Sun and I was excited to live among the rolling hills of Italy. But little did I realize, Naples is decidedly NOT Tuscany. We landed and almost immediately came upon an overflowing dumpster on fire. It was a literal dumpster fire, and it just got worse from there. I was told that military spouses– which they considered me now– were not allowed to apply for or obtain a professional-level job while stationed in Italy.
That didn’t sit well with me, and eventually I ended up getting a contract role doing policy analysis for a Navy customer (in Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection, which I could barely spell when I got the request to help) and WWC Global was born. Initially, we grew organically by hiring the incredible military spouses to do projects for the Navy, first in Naples and then in Sicily, Bahrain, and Spain. Later, we continued a strong growth trajectory by hiring other amazing staff around the world to work with the military, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and across other Federal agencies. Over the course of about 13 years, we grew the firm to 100 full-time employees and $15 million in annual revenue.
We knew we were facing a big transition for the firm– something known in the government contracting industry as the “Valley of Death,” where previously-small businesses grow out of small business status and have to compete against the big firms instead of the other small businesses. We knew we had to win at least one BIG contract before we found ourselves in the Valley of Death, so we could play against the big firms.
And boy, did we win. We won a $200 million contract to support training and exercise for the United States Special Operations Command– the headquarters service for Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and other elite military operators. It was the largest award ever to a woman-owned small business in Special Operations Command HQ history. We followed that up two years later with another $200 million in additional contract awards across the Federal space. Suddenly, we went from $15 million in annual revenue to $100 million and over 350 direct employees (plus another few hundred subcontractors).
We built this improbable firm over the years, when everyone around us were telling us we couldn’t possibly do what we were doing (even as we actually DID it). We did it by knowing the rules better than anyone else, and using that knowledge to find our own unique path to success. We did it, in other words, by getting Unruly.
Beyond our success in business, I built a successful-if-chaotic life as a wife and a mother to two really great (and naturally Unruly) kids, who both play competitive hockey all over the country. I became the primary caregiver to my two aging parents– one with advanced Alzheimer’s, the other with Parkinson’s and osteoporosis and glaucoma (which is a particularly bad combination of balance issues, vision issues, and brittle bones…). I don’t have work/life balance worked out, by any stretch, but I have found a reasonable equilibrium that generally works (until it doesn’t, and then it is time to re-tweak).