Vanessa O'Neill
Cedar Spring, Inc.
Emergency response solutions
www.cspring.com
Irvine, Calif.
Current revenue: $500,000
Shelter from the Storm
In the wake of last year's devastating hurricanes Katrina and Rita it became clear that a more effective emergency response strategy was needed. Vanessa O'Neill's company, Cedar Spring Inc., launched in 2006, is part of a growing wave of businesses that are developing solutions to provide emergency and disaster relief.
Cedar Spring is the exclusive government distributor for a high-tech line of rapidly deployable emergency-response shelters.
O'Neill is busy coordinating her marketing efforts to government decision-makers, procurement officers, and end users in a push to sell her products to federal agencies on a wide scale. “These [mobile surgery units] are about $2.5 million apiece, so do the math,” she says.