Full case study
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Client snapshot
- The client
- SDV Medical and Office Systems — a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business providing medical equipment and office furnishings to the VA, DoW, and BIA
- Founded
- By Tyler Whisnant and his father, Dan Whisnant — built around ensuring Veterans and Military personnel have access to the best facilities and care possible
- The connection
- Tyler was one of Chris Rawlings' star students — years later, he called his former professor for a referral
- The challenge
- Contracts required funding substantial purchases well before customer payment
- The constraint
- Equity was off the table — veteran ownership was essential to SDVOSB status
- Spara's role
- Fractional CFO, embedded accounting, capital strategy, and leadership development
Services used
- Fractional CFO
- Accounting & bookkeeping
- Payroll
- Capital & banking strategy
- Investor & lender communication
- Financial infrastructure build
- Finance Essentials training
- Veteran scholarship partnership
The challenge
SDV was exceptionally good at executing. The leadership team understood its customers, knew how to win opportunities, and knew how to deliver. The challenge was financing those opportunities. As a relatively new and thinly capitalized company, SDV could win significant contracts — but large vendors were unwilling to extend sufficient credit, often requiring payment before they would begin fulfilling an order.
A single contract could require SDV to fund substantial purchases well before receiving payment from the customer. And the obvious answer for most growing businesses — selling equity — was not an option: maintaining veteran ownership and control was essential to SDV's status as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business.
The opportunities were there. The challenge was finding the capital to execute them — without giving up the ownership that defined the company.
Why Spara
The relationship began years before SDV was founded. Tyler Whisnant had been one of Chris Rawlings' star students as an undergraduate. Years later, when Tyler and his father, Dan, started SDV, Tyler called his former professor looking for a referral to an accounting firm. As Chris learned more about the business, it became clear SDV needed more than traditional accounting and tax services — it needed financial leadership, better infrastructure, and access to capital. The conversation continued over coffee, and a partnership began.
Spara worked closely with SDV's leadership to develop creative ways to access the capital its rapidly growing contract volume demanded. Rather than relying on a single funding source, Spara helped SDV evaluate and structure financing involving banks and private investors — while protecting the ownership structure required to maintain SDVOSB status.
Accessing capital was only part of the solution. A significant part of Spara's value was helping SDV's leaders learn to speak the language of business. They were experts at execution; Spara helped them translate that operational success into the financial language banks, investors, and other partners needed to hear: margins, cash requirements, forecasts, working capital needs, and growth opportunities. SDV already had a tremendous success story — Spara helped the team tell that story in financial terms.
The partnership, phase by phase
Phase 1 · The referral that became a partnership
What started as a former student's call for an accounting referral became a conversation over coffee — and the realization that SDV needed financial leadership, not just bookkeeping. Spara stepped in with fractional CFO, accounting, and payroll services from the early days.
Phase 2 · Creative capital access
Spara helped SDV structure financing through banks and private investors without touching the ownership structure that protected its SDVOSB status — removing the single biggest constraint on the company's ability to execute the contracts it was winning.
Phase 3 · Speaking the language of business
Spara coached SDV's leaders to communicate their operational success in financial terms. Instead of simply telling a bank the company was growing rapidly, leadership could support that story with financial information, forecasts, and a clear explanation of how additional capital would fuel increasingly larger opportunities.
Phase 4 · Building financial capability — and people
As SDV scaled, Spara provided the financial infrastructure to support a much larger organization — and kept investing in its people. Spara mentors key SDV leaders, and the two organizations co-sponsor Finance Essentials scholarships that make professional development available to veterans.
Results
Constraint removed — access to growth capital eliminated the biggest barrier to executing the contracts SDV was winning.
Rapid, sustained scale — with capital, communication skills, and infrastructure in place, SDV's revenue multiplied many times over.
Ownership protected — every financing solution preserved the veteran ownership and control central to SDV's mission and status.
Fluent financial leadership — SDV's leaders now tell their growth story in the language banks and investors understand.
People developed — ongoing mentoring, professional development, and co-sponsored scholarships that extend opportunity to veterans.
A shared mission: both organizations believe successful businesses should do more than generate financial results — they should develop people.
In the client's words
“Spara swiftly grasped the nuances of our business model and aided us in crafting a compelling communication strategy, ensuring potential investors and financial institutions understood our vision and potential.”
“Engaging with the Spara team has always been a delight.”