Corporate Housing Provider Secures FEMA Contract with Help from Florida APEX Accelerator at USF

GM Corporate Suites of Manatee County

For 15 years, GM Corporate Suites has been a trusted corporate housing provider in Florida, offering temporary housing solutions to clients in need of comfort and convenience. Founded by Gabrielle Channell, the business was launched out of a passion for helping corporate individuals and families find quality housing during business trips or transitional periods.

“We provide furnished housing, everything included as far as living room set, dining room set, bedroom furniture… all housewares and all utilities as well,” Channell said. “We work with a lot of the larger corporate housing providers who’ve been in the business for

much longer than we have but we’ve kind of taken a step up, so now we’re not just a

wholesaler anymore, which is nice,” she added.

When asked why she started the business, Channell replied, “It actually started with my own property, renting it out, because I needed to generate some more income. I was in real estate then and the market was crashing so I rented out my own place furnished and then it dawned on me that this is an actual business and then it just [developed] from there.”

Seeking to expand her business through government contracting, Channell turned to the Florida APEX Accelerator at USF for guidance. She began working with Florida APEX Accelerator at USF business consultant Karen Krymski, whose expertise helped her navigate the complexities of government contracts, starting with a System for Award Management (SAM) registration.

“We have used the information from our APEX Accelerator consultant by utilizing the SAM platform. I did sign up for it initially, but I had never used it because I didn’t know how; it wasn’t user-friendly. Finally, two or three years ago I reached out to somebody, they put me in touch with Karen and it just snowballed from there. She helped me use the platform. We corrected a lot of stuff in it that wasn’t accurate. We got connected from FEMA with the direct lease program for Florida. Karen was super helpful in getting us squared away in the System for Award Management,” Channell expressed.

Through strategic mentorship and targeted support, Channell secured a coveted $15 Million IDIQ lease contract with FEMA. This success not only solidified her business’s reputation but also opened doors to more government contracting opportunities.

“Our business has grown from the APEX Accelerator at USF by obtaining government contracts. We initially started back in November. FEMA contractors and FEMA personnel started reaching out to us because they are deployed here helping rebuild the communities. They were working on the GSA per diem as far as housing is concerned. So once the contractors and FEMA personnel started reaching out to us for housing and we were able to provide what they wanted, and a little bit more than they expected. It just snowballed from there. It was just referral after referral after referral, and then December 2nd is when we obtained the direct lease five-year contract with the FEMA direct lease program,” Channell said with a smile.

Since collaborating with the Florida APEX Accelerator at USF, GM Corporate Suites has seen remarkable growth. Now, they plan on continuing their relationship in order to gain more business success. “We’ll continue to use the APEX Accelerator at Florida moving forward to help us understand additional contracts, opportunity contracts in the System for Award Management and also any other webinars or meetings that they have for networking; we’ll utilize that as well,” Channell said.

Encouraging other small businesses to take advantage of the resources offered, Channell said, “We would tell our friends, or anybody interested in government contracting to use the Florida APEX Accelerator so that way they have the correct guidance for where to get the right contracts, how to utilize the SAM platform because the SAM platform is complex, I will admit. Maybe not to everybody else but for me it was. So, Karen tremendously helped us out getting through that, doing the woman-owned small business [certification], getting us on board with that. We got that approved so we would suggest definitely using an APEX Florida Accelerator.”