Greg Buckis

The through-line

Greg Buckis's account of federal market consulting rests on a single conviction: the value in that market sits with people who already know the agencies from the inside, and a firm's job is to organise itself around them. He describes Deep Water Point & Associates as a business founded on exactly that premise, and describes his own role in finance as supplying the internal scaffolding a consultant-led firm needs once it starts growing by acquisition [1][2].

On building the business around consultants with agency access

The founding logic of the firm, as he tells it, is access. "We've founded or started at least the deep water business on Consultants who have an entree into an agency whether it's the defense side or federal government side," he says, "so we have folks who know who's running those agencies and what type of work would be uh needed for them" [1]. The mechanism that follows is deliberately simple: those consultants judge whether an agency's needs fit a client, and if they do, "then they introduce to others and it helps them expand in their market and grow their business" [1]. Growth for the client, in this model, is a by-product of relationships and current knowledge of who is running what, rather than of process. It is also the reasoning behind a consultant-heavy staffing model and behind the kinds of consultants the firm looks for, questions he took up alongside the range of work the firm delivers, from government-wide contracts through to transaction advisory, and the trends and emerging opportunities he sees in the government sector [2].

On growth by acquisition and the structure it demands

Buckis is candid that he arrived to serve a specific phase of company life. He is there "to help with the growth of the company," he says, "since we've had a large acquisition and we're on the path for more so they want some internal structure and we're working on that" [1]. The framing is worth noting: more deals are assumed, and the finance answer to that is building internal structure ahead of them rather than after. That view is consistent with a career he describes as more than 25 years in govcon, intermixed with technology companies and public tech companies, where part of the work was helping take them public [1]. Guiding clients through acquisitions sits alongside helping them write winning proposals as the two halves of what the firm does [2].

Takeaways

• The firm was built on consultants with an entree into a defence or federal agency, people who "know who's running those agencies and what type of work would be uh needed for them" [1].
• Those relationships convert into client growth through introduction: when an agency's needs fit a client, the consultant makes the connection and the client expands in its market [1].
• Buckis joined to support growth following a large acquisition, with more expected, and treats building internal structure as the precondition for that path [1].
• His background is more than 25 years in govcon mixed with technology and public tech companies, including work taking companies public [1].
• The consultant-heavy model, the qualities sought in consultants, government-wide contracts, transaction advisory and emerging trends in the government sector were all on his agenda [2].