From engineer to owner: Corey Veverka's journey building Total Validation Services

Executive overview

Corey Veverka stumbled into entrepreneurship through a tragic accident — the person groomed to take over Total Validation Services died, and Corey was recruited instead. After a decade growing the company from the inside, he negotiated a buyout with an SBA loan he heard about on sports radio.

Ownership magnifies everything: the highs are higher, the lows are lower — and the amplitude of decisions catches most first-time owners off guard.

The conversation covers the transition from operator to owner, costly early mistakes with cash and client relationships, and the challenge of expanding to a second office while preserving culture.

The business and its niche

• Total Validation Services (TVS) supports biotech and drug manufacturers in meeting FDA regulatory requirements for new manufacturing facilities.
• Work is capital-intensive, tied to construction projects: validating that a new facility was built correctly before it goes into production.
• Ongoing validation work exists but most drug producers handle it in-house; new construction is where outside teams are needed.
• Bay Area focus is a deliberate niche — high bill rates make remote staffing unworkable, and the region is a major biotech hub.
• Core model is team-based: a project manager on site with three to six reports, not individual staff augmentation.

How Corey came to own the company

• Grew up in an academic household with little money; pursued mechanical engineering with an eye toward leadership and sales.
• Joined TVS in 2001 in an operations and sales role after being recruited by the owner.
• The person originally groomed to take over TVS died in a motorcycle accident — that vacancy is what opened the door.
• In 2013 the owner signalled he wanted to exit; two years of hard negotiations followed.
• Financing was stuck until Corey heard a Comerica Bank SBA loan ad on sports radio and called the number.
• Bought the company with a business partner who also worked at TVS; the partnership has held.

The transition from operator to owner

• Running the company before the buyout felt similar to owning it — until the buck stopped with him.
• A fellow EO member warned him: "When you become an entrepreneur, life is magnified. Your highs are higher, your lows are lower." He didn't fully understand it until he lived it.
• Crisis one day, celebration the next — the amplitude of results was the biggest surprise.

Costly early mistakes

• After the buyout, a large project generated strong cash flow; the team celebrated, spent freely, took everyone to Disneyland.
• The following year, accumulated small expenses had significantly eaten into margins — a reckoning that took two years to correct.
• Also took client relationships for granted, assuming recurring work would keep coming without active management.
• Lost a major long-term client (Genentech) due to post-buyout overconfidence — assumed they would defer to him, didn't manage the relationship, and paid a significant financial cost.

Operating through COVID

• On-site work couldn't be paused entirely — testing requires physical presence in manufacturing facilities.
• Initial lockdown put some staff on the bench until clients developed site protocols that outside teams could operate within.
• Shifted quarterly in-person meetings to virtual; sent gift baskets and held virtual team events to maintain engagement.
• Biggest operational problem: onboarding new hires remotely. The usual approach involved shadowing teammates and spontaneous coaching on-site; Zoom created a friction barrier that significantly slowed the process.
• SOPs and procedure libraries exist and help, but they don't replace face-to-face, spontaneous learning.

Expansion toward Seattle

• Growth target is West Coast expansion; TVS has done project work in Portland, LA, and San Diego but never established a second office.
• Signed a master services agreement with a Seattle client — an anchor project to build from, as Seattle is an underserved validation market.
• Key challenge: exporting culture and operating practices to a new city without being able to travel freely.
• Near-term plan: treat Seattle as a project, then find the right local leader to grow the office once travel resumes.
• COVID upside: comfort with remote collaboration will make resource-sharing between Bay Area and Seattle easier than it would have been previously.

Leadership lessons and advice

• Learn negotiation skills early — Corey credits a Holly Strath course at UC Berkeley as a turning point, and wishes he'd had those skills during the buyout.
• The EO peer network provided the kind of sounding board that's hard to find elsewhere — other members had navigated the same problems.
• The most important current leadership task: finding, coaching, and growing the right person to lead the Seattle office who genuinely shares TVS's values and operating style.