Waterford ― The U.S. Small Business Administration on Monday recognized Dicin Electric owner Cindy Hersom as the National Subcontractor of the Year, as the family business celebrates its 50th anniversary.

SBA Connecticut District Director Catherine Marx took the event as “an opportunity for us to showcase what government contracting can do for small business,” noting that Hersom doubled her sales from $6 million to $12 million in the last seven years.

Dicin has been doing work at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton since a year after Rudy and Janice Chieka founded the company in 1973. Hersom, one of their daughters, became president and CEO in August 2015 and has since expanded federal contracting to Electric Boat.

“My sister and I quickly learned that the business was woven into who we were as a family,” said Hersom, who was three years old when the business was founded. Tearing up, she said, “We didn’t know any different. The business was our parents’ but it was ours’ too.”

Janice Chieka recalled how busy it was with two small children, and how she took messages for her husband at a time when there were no cell phones or beepers.

Since its founding, Dicin has wired all five new piers at the sub base, Hersom noted at a roundtable with SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman at Foxwoods Resort Casino in January. But the company just started working with EB in 2019, after Hersom attended a “matchmaking event” with the submarine manufacturer.

Keith MacKenzie, a project manager for the New Jersey-headquartered marine construction and dredging contractor Weeks Marine, nominated Hersom for the award. Weeks Marine is a prime contractor, meaning it does work for entities such as the Navy and Army Corps, and then subcontracts out specialized work.

MacKenzie said when Weeks was awarded the contract for construction of the newest pier at the sub base, Hersom immediately called to offer help. Dicin worked with Navy electrical engineers, and despite the challenges of contending with other subcontractors, global supply chain issues, and inflation, Dicin hit its milestones for the project.

Hersom said government contracting has changed a lot over the years, and if she doesn’t do her due diligence and reach out to prime contractors, there’s a good chance they’ll bring in their people from other regions.

Hersom said Dicin has 24 employees, and the core group of 12 to 15 electricians can grow based on contracts. She noted several of her employees in her remarks, such as the estimator who has been with the company since 2003 and office manager celebrating her 28th year.

And she praised a few of the other small businesses she works with such as Fast Signs, Lighthouse Reflections Photography, Helpdesk Xpress, Gourmet Gallery and Smith’s Acres.

Rep. Kathleen McCarty, R-Waterford, and Sen. Martha Marx, D-New London, presented Hersom with a citation from the Connecticut General Assembly. Hersom will also be invited to Washington, D.C. to accept the award.

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said EB has 130 suppliers in his district and said Monday’s event is important because he wants to see that number grow. He wants people to know that getting into federal government contracting is “not a scary thing,” that “once you get the hang of it, it becomes something that is really manageable.”

From the procurement division of the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services, Meg Yetishefsky encourages people looking to get into government contracting to start with state opportunities and then navigate to the federal side.

Dicin doesn’t do residential work but has done other industrial projects outside of government contracting, such as work at the University of Connecticut at Storrs and Avery Point, Yale University, Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Middletown, and banks. It is also the electrical contractor for the Innovation Center the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut is creating in New London.