Tamie Taylor, founder of Taylored Business Solutions, engaged in project management work on a job site.

Fixed for Success

Taylored Business Solutions helps contractors navigate government contracts successfully

By David A. James

ivil and government jobs provide the bulk workload for many contractors. From infrastructure projects to office buildings to waste management and more, federal, state, and local governments are forever in need of getting projects done. And for construction and contracting firms, being able to successfully execute these jobs requires completing a lot of paperwork.

This is where Tamie Taylor, founder of Taylored Business Solutions, steps in.

“Government jobs are paperwork intensive,” Taylor says. “It is imperative that your pre-con submittals and buy-out [are] completed timely to successfully kick off a project. You’ve got to have somebody preparing and reviewing those submittals and making sure that they’re done. Because you can’t start digging until you have a plan that is submitted and approved. That’s the part that I was wanting to take off of their plate and/or help guide them.”

Taylor launched her business with an eye on simply helping contractors draw up that paperwork. But she quickly learned her clients needed assistance with more than that. Much of her work, she says, “has turned into being what I call project remediation. When a project gets into trouble, they call me and I go in and fix it.”

Tamie Taylor, founder and owner of Taylored Business Solutions.

Taylor helps businesses get a project started—a process that often demands a multitude of submittals. Most businesses struggle with this, she explains. “I make sure that you have the safety plan, the environmental plan, the quality control plans and other pre-con paperwork. All of those plans that are required at the beginning of the job before the contracting officer will give you a notice to proceed.”

Taylor also helps contractors obtain the staffing they need to keep the job going. “If you don’t have the people, I can temporarily supplement and assist you in hiring them, so that you know we can put them in the plans that have to be submitted.”

Taylor doesn’t stop there. She says she often finds herself guiding clients long after they have broken ground and started work. “If a project is in trouble, then I’m going on site,” she says. “I’m being the project manager, superintendent, or QCM (quality control manager) and digging into the project to figure out how we’re going to get the work done.”

Tamie Taylor was awarded the National Association of Women in Construction Member of the Year in 2021.

It’s a lot of specialty work for someone who fell into the construction field unplanned. Taylor was a college student in Colorado when she took a summer job with a general contractor.

“I had a boss that saw my ability and basically came up to me and said, ‘You can do whatever you want to in this industry. You just tell me how I can help you get there’,” she recalls.

She told him she wanted to be on location at construction projects, so that’s where he sent her.

“I was in the field being a laborer and then was in the job site trailer, being like a project engineer or a contract administrator, doing submittals, helping the project manager,” she says.

By making herself available, she became indispensable, and her knowledge of the industry grew rapidly.

This brought her north in 1989, when the same contractor took a job here and asked her to come work as a contract administrator.

“He called me when I was in Colorado and said, ‘How can I get you to come to Alaska?’”

She stayed and founded Taylored Business Solutions in 2013.

“I felt that there was a need in small businesses helping them navigate the government contracting world,” she explains.

She saw contractors struggle with the paperwork and process necessary to successfully start and manage government contracts and decided with her knowledge and experience that she could help. “I saw the need and wanted to be the fixer.”

The business took off immediately. “When I put the word out there that I was willing to do this, I had contractors calling me all the time.”

Taylor says far more government contracts fail because of paperwork issues than shortcomings on the job site. They fail, she says, “because they don’t get the paperwork done on a timely basis. So then they can’t start the project or activity on time.”

Jim Bennett, a project manager with M2C1 Construction & Engineering, has worked with Taylor and says she “brings an incredible blend of skill and dedication to every project. Her attention to detail and collaborative approach make working with her a rewarding experience.”

Taylor describes herself as a fixer and, through Taylored Business Solutions, she negotiates the byzantine world of government projects for clients, then assists them to the finish line.

She says, “That seems to be a forte that I got into—helping contractors actually get projects completed and hopefully saving them time and money.”