SOAR Eastern Kentucky Runway Recompete sub-vendor — services firm contracting to SOAR Inc's $40M federal cooperative agreement on case management, digital skilling delivery, peer mentorship, or sub-recipient compliance support, on a time-limited 5-year window through August 2029

SOAR's institutional position is unique. SOAR Inc is a 501(c)(3) founded in 2013 (EIN 37-1760428) co-chaired by Congressman Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Governor Andy Beshear, with Colby Hall as Executive Director and Joshua Ball as Chief Operating Officer. Donovan Blackburn — CEO of Pikeville Medical Center — sits as SOAR Treasurer, creating a governance overlap between the EDA prime recipient and one of the named sub-grantees. The latest Form 990 (FY2025, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer) records $6.8M revenue, $6.3M expenses, $4.0M net assets, 92.4% contributions, with a volunteer board (no officer compensation). The Recompete cooperative agreement is the largest single federal commitment SOAR has held.

The five sub-awards have specific scopes and award IDs. ED24HDQ0G0523 ($15.14M) funds case management + last-dollar-in funding for PAEG enrollees; the case-manager workforce is contracted through EKCEP (Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program), the WIOA local board for the 23-county region. ED24HDQ0G0522 ($9.24M) funds the Appalachian Digital Career Academy through Code Kentucky / Code:You and SkillUp partnerships. ED24HDQ0G0525 ($6.61M) funds peer mentorship + digital marketing + a Pike County 'front door' for entrants. ED24HDQ0G0521 ($650K) funds emerging-tech for business owners. ED24HDQ0G0524 ($358K) funds SOAR's own program administration. A separate ARH sub-grant of $6.7 million funds the LPN/Medical Assistant Allied Health Training Academy in a 9,000 sq ft Pikeville facility under construction in partnership with KCTCS.

The competitive landscape is mostly already captured at the headline-bucket level. EKCEP holds the case-management workforce. ARH holds the Allied Health Academy ($6.7M). Code Kentucky (Louisville-based, code-you.org) and Bit Source (Pikeville, founded 2015 by Rusty Justice and Lynn Parish — the original 'coal-to-code' shop) hold the digital skilling instructor pool. The University of Kentucky Human Development Institute (Lexington) holds outcomes evaluation. Pikeville Medical Center holds the healthcare-anchor training site. **The open sub-vendor scope a newcomer can win is the pass-through tier** — sub-contractor instructor seats, case-manager 1099 contracts, peer-mentor roster slots, fiscal-sponsor services for sub-grantees who can't carry their own audit, ETPL-listed training providers in narrower trade categories.

The structural and timing constraints are real. Single-audit threshold under 2 CFR 200.501 is **$1,000,000** in federal expenditures per fiscal year (raised from $750K effective October 1, 2024). De minimis indirect cost rate is **15% of MTDC** (raised from 10%). Sub-recipients clearing $1M federal expenditures owe a Single Audit ($15K–$25K/yr at the small-entity scale, $30K–$60K at $5M+). 2 CFR 200 sub-recipient compliance includes time-and-effort reporting, federally-compliant accounting, monitoring visits, procurement-policy documentation. The Recompete Pilot Program is one-shot — no reauthorization yet — so any business model premised on this cooperative agreement has a hard end-date (August/September 2029) and no organic follow-on customer. Customer concentration is structural: a pure-play SOAR-orbit vendor will run ≥80% revenue from a single funder, which is disqualifying for SBA acquisition financing and difficult for any conventional lender.

Sub-grant scope range. The largest named single sub-grant is ARH Allied Health Training Academy at $6.7M. The brief's $250K–$1.5M typical range applies to sub-sub work — pass-through service contracts under EKCEP's $15.14M case-management bucket and SOAR's $9.24M digital-skilling bucket. Compliance economics: Single Audit threshold $1M federal expenditures per fiscal year; $15–$25K/yr cost at the small-entity scale; de minimis indirect cost rate 15% of MTDC (raised from 10% Oct 2024). On a $750K sub-grant the de minimis indirect recovery is approximately $98K without negotiating a federal rate.

Rate benchmarks. Case-manager loaded salary $48K–$62K (KY Region 8 BLS for social and human service assistants and vocational rehab counselors); fully loaded with fringe + indirect approximately $70K–$92K. 1099 contractors run $35–$55/hr on these contracts; W-2 preferred for compliance under WIOA. Digital-skilling instructors $55–$95/hr adjunct/contract; $85K–$120K full-time loaded. Per-seat ITA reimbursement on KY ETPL averages $4K–$8K per program completer; advanced credentials (LPN, CDL) higher.

Year-by-year revenue trajectory. Illustrative for a $1M, 4-year sub-grant: Year 1 ~$150K (ramp/hire); Year 2 ~$300K; Year 3 ~$300K; Year 4 ~$250K (close-out + outcome reporting tail). Outcome reporting obligation extends approximately 2 quarters post-completion under WIOA performance metrics. Sustainability cliff August/September 2029 — sub-recipients should expect Year-4 revenue to taper unless SOAR secures a follow-on, which is not yet enacted.

Take-home math. A 1-2 person operator-led sub-vendor capturing $400K–$700K/yr in sub-grant flow at 25–30% net (after labor + 2 CFR 200 compliance overhead + Single Audit): owner take-home $100K–$200K. Customer concentration is the disqualifier for SBA acquisition financing — a SOAR-orbit vendor with 80%+ single-funder revenue cannot use SBA 7(a) for an exit. Any operator path here assumes private cash + sub-grant cash flow, not leveraged buyout. Inputs: 2 CFR 200.501 + 200.414 documentation; SOAR Phase 2 Recompete Plan PDF (mirror via archive.org if eda.gov returns 403); Hal Rogers Aug 2024 release; KY ETPL fee schedule.

• Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) Inc

  Prime recipient — regional EDO

  Institution

  137 Main St Ste 300, Pikeville KY 41501. (606) 766-1160. Founded 2013, 501(c)(3) since 2015 (EIN 37-1760428). Co-chairs: Hal Rogers + Andy Beshear. Colby Hall, Executive Director; Joshua Ball, COO; Donovan Blackburn (PMC CEO), Treasurer. The prime that issues sub-grants — not an acquisition target.
• Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP)

  WIOA local board — case-management subcontractor

  Institution

  23-county WIOA local board, captured Excel/MC Mining 280-job WARN rapid response. Holds the $15.14M case-management bucket via partnership with SOAR. Headquartered Hazard. ekcep.org.
• Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH)

  Healthcare anchor — $6.7M Allied Health Academy sub-grantee

  Institution

  Founded 1956. CEO Hollie Harris Phillips. ARH-McDowell (Floyd County, ~30 min south of Pike) is the nearest ARH facility to Pike. Holds $6.7M sub-grant for LPN/MA Allied Health Training Academy (9,000 sq ft Pikeville facility, KCTCS partner).
• Pikeville Medical Center

  Healthcare anchor — training site partner

  Institution

  PMC CEO Donovan Blackburn sits as SOAR Treasurer (governance overlap). PMC's $2M EDA Workforce Innovation Center construction is one of the Recompete-aligned investments; PMC itself is a sub-grantee for healthcare-workforce-training scope.
• Code Kentucky / Code:You

  Digital skilling sub-recipient

  Active in market

  Louisville-based. Named partner on the Appalachian Digital Career Academy ($9.24M scope). 6 years tenure. KY-wide footprint.
• Bit Source

  Coal-to-code instructor pool — Pikeville-HQ

  Active in market

  Founded 2015 by Rusty Justice and Lynn Parish. The original 'coal-to-code' coding shop — Pikeville-based. Active in SOAR Recompete digital-skilling orbit. Bit Source is in its second decade; a partnership conversation about instructor-pool capacity makes more sense than an acquisition pitch.
• Interapt

  Tech training — adjacent sub-recipient candidate

  Active in market

  Louisville HQ but established Eastern Kentucky footprint (TEKY history in Paintsville/Mayo). Founded 2009. CEO Ankur Gopal. Adjacent competitor or partner for digital-skilling scope.
• University of Kentucky Human Development Institute

  Outcomes evaluation sub-recipient

  Out-of-county

  Lexington. Director Dr. Kathy Sheppard-Jones. Founded 1969. Named SOAR Recompete partner for outcomes-and-evaluation scope.
• Center for Rural Development

  Adjacent regional EDO + KY PTAC host (Somerset)

  Institution

  Hal Rogers founded 1996. ~$8.5M FY26 state appropriation + multi-million federal pipeline. Lonnie Lawson, CEO. Hosts KY Procurement Technical Assistance Center for federal-contracting prep.
• Big Sandy Community & Technical College (Mayo Campus)

  KCTCS delivery node — Pike-adjacent

  Institution

  KCTCS technical-education delivery; partner on the ARH Allied Health Academy + adjacent training scope.

This candidate is structurally a non-acquisition lane. There is no Pike-County publicly-listed for-sale operator who plugs directly into SOAR sub-grant scope. The closest tangential acquisition target is a succession-aged Pikeville bookkeeping or grant-administration sole proprietor — the kind that already does QuickBooks for Pike-area nonprofits — who could be acquired and re-positioned as a 2 CFR 200-compliant fiscal sponsor for sub-grantees who can't carry their own audit. No specific named target; would require a scan of KY SoS LLC dissolutions plus chamber introductions.

The realistic operator path is build, not buy. A 1099 contractor relationship with EKCEP for case-management headcount, with Code Kentucky for digital-skilling instructor seats, with ARH for Allied Health Academy support staffing, or with SOAR directly for fiscal-sponsorship services to smaller sub-grantees. The build path requires SAM.gov registration, UEI assignment, ETPL listing for any training-side scope (60–90 days for KY E&L Cabinet registration), 2 CFR 200 sub-recipient compliance documentation, and Pike-political relationship cover (Beshear + Rogers governance, PMC + ARH board overlap).

Bit Source-style affiliation is an alternative. Bit Source (Rusty Justice and Lynn Parish, founded 2015) is in its second decade. Not for sale, but a partnership or affiliation rather than acquisition is the realistic path for an instructor-pool entrant — joining Bit Source's instructor roster on a 1099 basis or building parallel curriculum capacity that Bit Source might subcontract into.

• — Five of seven project lines are publicly tied to named partners. The 'open' sub-grant RFP scope a newcomer can win is the smaller pass-through tier; we have not interviewed Colby Hall (SOAR Executive Director) or Joshua Ball (SOAR COO) directly to enumerate which sub-grant scopes still have open RFP cycles.
• — Sub-recipient detail at the FAIN/PIID level (ED24HDQ0G0521 through ED24HDQ0G0525) populates via FFATA/FSRS reporting on a 60–90 day lag from sub-execution. Master sub-award schedule has not been pulled from EDA's grants management division.
• — EKCEP's specific case-manager 1099 vs W-2 mix and rate-card has not been confirmed. The $15.14M bucket flows through EKCEP's existing operator network largely.
• — Code Kentucky / Code:You's instructor pool capacity, gap analysis, and rate structure for the $9.24M Appalachian Digital Career Academy has not been interviewed.
• — ARH Allied Health Training Academy program lead has not been contacted to enumerate the 9,000 sq ft Pikeville facility timeline, instructor-of-record needs, and KCTCS partnership scope.
• — Pike's HUBZone tract eligibility map for SOAR sub-grants requires direct SBA HUBZone map lookup at any prospective sub-vendor's address.
• — ETPL outcome reporting requirements are documented but the specific submission process for sub-vendors without prior CPE reporting (Center for Education and Workforce Statistics submission) has not been walked through.
• — Center for Rural Development (Somerset) hosts KY PTAC; whether KY PTAC delivers Pike-county counseling onsite or remotely (and the engagement-time-cost) has not been confirmed.

Tonight, this week, this month — in that order. Each step produces a yes/no or a number, not a deeper understanding.