Recently, OHA determined that SDVOSB owners aren’t always required to personally possess the licenses required for their businesses.
In Veteran’s 1st Architecture, LLC, SBA No. CVE 122-A (2019), Veteran’s 1st appealed the VA CVE’s denial of its SDVOSB recertification application. The business, a Georgia architectural firm, was initially founded in December 2014 and first verified by CVE the following year. Three years later, the business applied for reverification, but was denied.
CVE denied Veteran’s 1st‘s reverification for three primary reasons, all based on the same fact: the service-disabled veteran owner of Veteran’s 1st Architecture was not a state-registered architect himself, though he did employ one. As a result, CVE held that a non-veteran architect “controlled” the architecture firm. OHA disagreed, holding that despite not possessing the license, the owner still maintained control.
CVE first found that because Veteran’s 1st‘s owner did not possess the “critical” architect license, he could not, and did not, control the company’s daily business operations. Relying on Georgia law, CVE determined that “the practice of architecture by a limited liability company “had to be under the “‘responsible control’ of a Georgia-registered architect.”
OHA held otherwise, stating that the “practice of architecture” composed only a portion of the business’s daily operations.
Continue reading at: SmallGovCon
