Stateside Global Supply

About Michael O’Reilly

Stateside Global Supply is a new venture, to which I bring twenty years of entrepreneurial experience and a lifetime of inspiration. As a teenager in 1990 I watched my Dad, Bill O’Reilly, pitch an idea to the US Military just as Operation Desert Storm was about to unfold in the Middle East. It was not a contract offered to the public, but an audacious plan everyone (including the military) told him could never be done.

With only a few month’s lead time, and after big companies like AT&T and MCI abandon the project, my Dad and a few business partners negotiated a deal between multiple foreign governments to establish a satellite connection that allowed US forces based in Saudi Arabia to easily call their loved ones back in the States.

“Operation Phone Home,” not only raised morale among the troops who made frequent use of the system, but earned my Dad an award from General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the Desert Storm theater. That’s just a brief synopsis of a wild story made even more exciting by the fact that — at so many points along the way — the deal almost fell apart.

Even as I understood the risks of starting my own business, the allure of working for myself led to constant daydreaming as I pursed my Masters degree in creative writing at the University of Utah. I simply had to try.

My first LLC, Timber Hawk, is hunting backpack brand I built from the ground, up, beginning in 2005. My competition were big companies in stores like Cabela’s and Bass Pro shops, but even before social media market was a thing, I understood the power of the internet. Early on, my grassroots marketing approach gave Timber Hawk an outsized appearance across the outdoor industry. I also gained a lot of experience in cut-and-sew manufacturing while working closely with overseas factories, a valuable asset I bring to the world of government contracting. In 2011, I was able to sell Timber Hawk to a larger company, and the high-quality backpacks are still available in stores around the country.

When the first iPhone came out in 2007, long before I sold Timber Hawk, I already had my sights set on the future of mobile technology. Within a year, while there were only a few thousand Apps available for download, I had I hired a programmer to build a simple checklist/GPS app (before the iPhone had a built-in mapping function). I went on to design six other apps for both Android and iPhone, managing both domestic and overseas programming teams, while familiarizing myself with the development software so I could troubleshoot any bugs, myself, before their final release.

During the time I was developing mobile apps, I was hired by a major publisher to write a book about Utah history, which was published in 2009. I wrote additional chapters for a second edition, which was released in 2017. My initial experience in the publishing industry led me to investigate the burgeoning world of ebooks, and I moved in that direction, away from mobile apps. As an early adopter of Apple’s iBooks Author ebook format, I wrote and released a number of children’s books, as well as product guides and other interactive material within various industries.

Whether working as a writer or businessman, I have always been a self-starter, and always worked from a home office. After moving from Utah back to my home state of Michigan with my wife and two young children, I managed to wedge in another (far more demanding) role, as “stay-at-home-dad.” During this period I turned my creative instinct toward visual art, and started another business called Brightwire Designs. Aside from developing a new process for working with wire as an artistic medium, I learned how to write proposals that won many grants for public art sculptures, after a few years of selling my work to private collectors. The craft of proposal-writing is another skill I bring to the world of government contracting.

My Dad’s Gulf War story made me well aware of the risks faced by those who cut their own path into uncharted territory. Nobody is destined for success, and the ability to sense a good opportunity is not taught in school, nor is the ability to make the right move at the right moment. Good business skills are the result of a curious mind asking the right questions and acting appropriately at the right moment, in accordance with the information available. Although I have a Masters degree, I didn’t study business, and my Dad didn’t even go to college. His story made me understand that life is what you make of it, and curiosity is maybe the most important thing. Resourcefulness, hard work and a little luck can sometimes lead to big success, as long as you keep your chin up when things don’t go your way, because they never always do. In that sense, my Dad made me realize how boring life would be if we didn’t take any risks at all.