Robert Hessel, CEO & Chairman, Source 1 Solutions

August 2026 —In an interview with Invest:, Robert Hessel, CEO and chairman of Source 1 Solutions, discussed outsourcing trends, talent, AI, business continuity, and community engagement. “If a community is good to you, it’s your responsibility to be good back to the community,” Hessel said.

What external changes over the past year have had the biggest impact on Source 1 Solutions?

Some of the biggest changes happening globally are tied to shifts in the workforce. A lot of tech companies are laying off individuals in the marketplace, whether because they were too bloated or because of a change in strategy. For us, that has created opportunity.

We have different buckets of where we make money in the market. When global projects slow down and companies are laying off people, it helps us in two ways. First, it puts a lot of talent in the market for us to recruit. Second, it means companies are looking more to outsource their IT needs.

As companies go through these massive layoffs, which are not great for the people affected, it does benefit our business because organizations are looking for outside firms like Source 1 to deliver large-scale IT projects and provide support. We are probably seeing the biggest uptick in our history because of the outsourcing that is going on right now.

How are you approaching talent attraction and development in this environment?

When layoffs happen, it is good for us from a talent perspective because, when there is a shortage of workforce, prices go up and recruitment becomes harder. The cost of acquiring talent becomes greater. But when there is a flood of talent into the marketplace, it becomes supply and demand. There is a lot of supply right now, and demand is still relatively the same, so we can acquire better talent at better rates.

That allows us to pass value on to our customers and remain competitive while still handling their needs at a price that works for everybody. We are also a little unique because we work in the channel. I like to tell people that we are most often the bridesmaid, never the bride. We are doing work on behalf of one of our big global partners.

When these trends happen, they can be great for us. One part of our business may slow down, but another part ramps up. I do not want to say we are recession-proof or bulletproof, but because we have different ways of making money inside the organization, no matter what is happening in the marketplace, we have spikes in certain areas that help balance the areas that might be slowing down.

We are seeing some things slow down. Big global projects are taking longer to get over the line. We are somewhat removed from a lot of the decision-making process because we are waiting for our partners to win these deals. Something that might have been planned for 2026 may now be looking at 2027.

What recent initiatives signal where the company is heading over the next few years?

We are close to closing on another acquisition. We did our first one two years ago just outside of London, and we are very close to closing on another one stateside that will impact us here in Florida. When we acquire companies, we need more infrastructure in our headquarters office in Clearwater to support those additions.

We do not really look at acquisitions as a growth strategy. We look at them as talent acquisition. The company we are preparing to purchase and acquire is one we have already been providing services to. They hired us to do a certain piece of business for them, and together with their CEO, we recognized that bringing them into the fold of Source 1 could help them grow and scale.

For us, it was an area where we had capabilities, but not as much as we will have by bringing them in. It will also put us into a different vertical market that we have not been focused on. With the clients they have, it gives us a fast track into those vertical markets.

What role does Source 1 Solutions play in supporting resilience and business continuity?

We are not a cybersecurity company, although cybersecurity touches us as a managed service provider. AI is changing the threat level at a speed most people cannot fathom, so cybersecurity-specific companies have their hands full.

We do some level of cybersecurity because we have to do network security. We also have our own AI initiatives internally. We are building our own AI platform instead of using an outsourced platform because we are concerned about security risks and sharing proprietary information with the rest of the world.

That is a big initiative here, and it should be complete by the end of this year. We are already using some of it in our testbed, which allows us to pull data from different departments and organizations that we own faster and with more business intelligence.

After 15 years in business, we have a lot of data. Going through that data and capturing it is difficult, so AI is going to help us be smarter with our customers, faster with our solutions, and hopefully design better solutions for our clients, not just this year but in the years ahead.

Which core service areas are currently driving the most growth?

Physical security is one of them. We do access control and video surveillance, and that is obviously a booming marketplace. The world has become less at ease than it was before, so keeping employees safe is incredibly important to our clients.

Business continuity is also important. Living in Tampa, Florida, we have to understand business continuity and have strong plans because we have hurricanes that come through here. We operate 24/7, 365 days a year, so our clients across the world do not really care what is going on in Tampa. They care that they are up and working all the time. Hurricanes should not be a problem for us.

Over the years, we have had an incredible focus on making sure we can contend with these types of situations. Two years ago, we had two major hurricanes in two weeks, and we were able to maintain a 100% first-call answer rate and first-call resolution through real hurricanes.

How do community engagement and brand presence factor into your growth strategy?

Our community engagement is completely our brand. At Source 1, we have our vision, mission, and values clearly visible in our headquarters. Culture is not words on a wall, or a pingpong table, or a pool table for people to use on break. It is about the actions you are placing back out in the community.

If a community is good to you, it’s your responsibility to be good back to the community. I am a fourth-generation military man, and we do security here, so we are very involved with active-duty military, retired veterans, and first responders.

My wife and I also founded the Hessel Family Foundation. We have autistic children, and the world is not doing a good enough job understanding autism and providing support. That is our second mission, and the foundation also supports veterans.

One of our coolest initiatives was building the first Hessel Family House. It supports a displaced veteran family. There are programs for veterans, but not as many for families. This family had fallen on hard times, so with other community partners, we built a house where they can live. They have an 11-year-old daughter, and she has her first bedroom in a very long time.

The family can live there for one year and extend for one more year. They still pay a portion of rent to the foundations supporting them, but at the end of the second year, they have to move on. It is a stepping stone to get them back into the workforce and community, and then a new family will move in. We completed our first house and will be doing another one.

All full-time Source 1 employees are allowed four hours off with pay per month for an approved charity. Our criteria are that it must be a local community charity giving back to the community we live in. We still support larger organizations when they have a great purpose, but we really try to focus on community impact.

We also do quarterly initiatives where 20 or 30 team members, whoever wants to sign up, participate in a larger community engagement project. The last one we did was for Tunnel to Towers, which is close to our hearts because of its support for first responders. We won the award for largest non-sponsored partner for fundraising, and I think we had 46 team members and their families running the event. That is a big part of the secret sauce for Source 1.

What are your key goals and priorities for the company over the next two to three years?

Our priority is to keep up with our clients. Technology changes so fast that it would be crazy to think we know what will happen three years from now. It is rapidly changing, so our focus is to stay in front of technology as best we can.

We are also looking for companies, like the acquisition we are making, that make us stronger. It is not really from a growth standpoint because that part is taking care of itself, and we are very blessed in that regard. It is about making sure we have all the skill sets internally so we can continue to deliver great services for our clients.