Veteran-Owned Business of the Year: The Story Behind the Award
- Rick Pina
- Jun 15
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 16
By Rick Pina, COO/CRO, Inspired Solutions | June 2026
Awards do not build companies. People do.
I want to say that first, because a trophy makes an easy headline and a poor explanation. Earlier this month, Inspired Solutions was named Veteran-Owned Business of the Year at the 24th Annual American Business Awards. We carried home the Bronze Stevie. I am grateful for it. But the award is not the story. The woman behind it is.
Her name is Isabella Pina. She is our founder, our CEO, and my wife.
Isabella was born in a village in Dominica with no running water and no electricity. She came to the United States at 20 and put on the uniform of a country that was not yet hers. She earned her citizenship while she served it. She gave the Army 21 years, 11 of them as a nurse. She finished as a Robotic Surgery Coordinator for the Department of Defense. Then, in 2015, she sat down at our kitchen table with the conviction that she was built for more.
She started a company that, to date, has executed close to $200M in contracts across federal, state/local government, and commercial sectors. Delivering on time, under budget, and with zero delivery failures. That is the record the judges recognized. I just get to watch it up close.
What Veteran-Owned Business of the Year Really Means
Here is what I know about awards. There is recognition you earn and recognition you buy. The two do not feel the same. The American Business Awards are judged by working executives, not a marketing panel, and Veteran-Owned Business of the Year does not hand out participation trophies. When they called our name, they were not grading a pitch. They were grading years of quiet, on-time, no-excuses delivery. That is the only kind of recognition worth having.
The Team Behind the Trophy
An award carries one name. A company carries many. This one belongs to a team that is Great Place to Work Certified three years running, with a 94 percent Trust Index against a national average of 57 percent. Those are not my words. That is an anonymous, third-party survey of the people who do the work. They show up for the mission because we show up for them. The award is theirs as much as anyone's.
More Than a Business: A Mission to Give Back
It points past the company, too. Isabella and I have been in ministry since the day we started our relationship, and we formally started a non-profit in 2007 (RIPMINISTRIES). When we retired from the military in 2015, not only did Isabella start this business, but our ministry also started a school (and later a church as well) in the Dominican Republic. Our school, Grace Destiny Academy, provides a free Christ-based education to 235 children of immigrants in the DR. Our giving back efforts far exceed those in the Dominican Republic. Isabella has built a culture at Inspired Solutions that is rooted in giving back. We support charities that our members support, and we get behind them to impact the communities in which we live, work, and play.
We did not build Inspired Solutions only to build Inspired Solutions. The work runs on purpose, and the purpose is bigger than the work.
So to the judges, thank you. To our team, you earned this on a hundred ordinary days nobody handed you credit for. And to Isabella, thank you for proving that a girl from a village with no electricity can build something that lights up a room in New York City.
We are not finished. This award is a marker on the road, not the end of it. The best is yet to come.
To God be the glory!
We Deliver IT Solutions & We Give Back!
If you are evaluating a veteran-owned IT partner for an upcoming requirement, we want the conversation. SDVOSB and 8(a) certified federal IT, backed by close to $200M in delivered work across federal, state, and commercial clients.
Web: inspired-us.com Email: rpina@inspired-us.com (Rick Pina, COO/CRO).
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