Gervais Ventures Graduates from UF’s 2025 Mentor-Protégé Program
Gervais Ventures has officially graduated from the University of Florida’s 2025 Mentor-Protégé Program. This program plays a pivotal role in growing the construction community by supporting emerging small businesses, expanding opportunities for diverse firms, and strengthening the supplier base for future university projects.
Strengthening Partnerships and Building for the Future
Gervais Ventures is honored to have graduated from the University of Florida’s 2025 Mentor-Protégé Program, an initiative designed to strengthen small businesses by pairing emerging small businesses with established firms. This year-long experience gave our team invaluable insight into growth, leadership, and long-term collaboration and partnership with the University of Florida. This milestone reflects our commitment to growth, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
The UF Small Business Relations mission is to seek out, identify and promote the use of small businesses that provide services and/or commodities procured by the institution. They ensure equal access to complete for procurement and contracting opportunities with the University. In addition, they offer small business development services to support a competent pool of suppliers to address the University’s procurement expectations.
Learning From an Experienced Mentor
For the 2025 cohort, Gervais Ventures had the privilege of being mentored by Calvin Peterson of Charles Perry Partners, Inc. Calvin brought a depth of experience and an openness that made the mentorship meaningful from day one. His guidance helped us sharpen our processes, expand our perspective, and identify new opportunities for long-term growth.
Whether discussing project management approaches, preconstruction systems, or client relationship strategies, Calvin’s support allowed us to accelerate our development in ways that would have taken years on our own.
Why This Program Matters
The University of Florida’s Mentor-Protégé Program was created to broaden the pool of qualified small businesses firms ready to support UF’s procurement needs. Its mission and purpose include:
Nurturing small and diverse businesses at various stages of development
Building capacity through hands-on mentorship with established contractors
Creating pathways for small businesses to compete more successfully for UF opportunities
Contributing to community economic growth by supporting long-term business development
This program reflects what we value most at Gervais Ventures: relationships, learning, and shared success.
A Word From Nik Gervais
“This experience reminded us why mentorship matters. Working with Calvin gave us new perspectives and a stronger foundation for future growth. We’re grateful to the University of Florida for creating a program that genuinely strengthens our industry.
I would like to extend a huge shout-out to Dwan and her entire team for their outstanding work. The program was fantastic - Dwan and her team crafted an excellent curriculum that empowered small businesses with knowledge and leadership skills to better support the University of Florida. We are very grateful the support from Dwan Deleveaux, Desirae Wallace, and Calvin Peterson.”
— Nik Gervais, Operations Manager, Gervais Ventures
A Meaningful Milestone—And Just the Beginning
Graduating from the 2025 Mentor-Protégé Program represents far more than completing a curriculum. It marks a year of collaboration, reflection, and growth—supported by a mentor who made a lasting impact on our business.
Gervais Ventures looks forward to applying what we’ve learned, continuing to expand our capabilities, and remaining actively involved in strengthening the construction community across Florida and beyond.
View more images from the 2025 Mentor Protege Program
Building Smarter, Safer
My good friend and mentor, Danny Palanuk, taught me this early in my career: Safety is About People. At Gervais Ventures, safety is not about numbers, forms, and statistics, Safety is about People.
How Gervais Ventures Elevates Safety Across Every Jobsite
Safety is About Protecting What’s Valuable, it’s About Your People.
Our co-founder, Nik Gervais’ good friend and mentor, Danny Palanuk, taught him early in his career: Safety is About People.
It’s about the people who work on our projects and their families. It’s about the neighbors near our sites. It’s about the students, residents, and work staff who cohabitate on our active campus projects.
That’s why it was critical to our team to focus on the people and establish the right safety culture onsite from day one.
Partnership with SAVI EHS and ABC Central Florida Safety Captive Program
As general contractors, we are responsible for setting the stage for the workers on our site to perform at their best. We knew that simply having Safety and Wellness as a core value wasn’t enough. We needed to build a program that worked for our people.
When we launched Gervais Ventures, we knew safety would always be a priority—but like many growing companies, we didn't have the capacity to build a full in-house EHS team from the beginning. That changed when we connected with Christian Deater, the Chief Business Officer at The Amphibious Group.
Christian Deater and Nik Gervais both came from global companies known for their impeccable safety programs and clearly defined processes. We saw an opportunity to bring that same level of discipline and care to Gervais Ventures—ensuring that our teams and trade partners benefit from a higher standard of safety, no matter the project size.
“I needed someone I could call if something happened—and someone who could help us prevent it in the first place. SAVI helped us develop a great program. This program helped us get organized, stay accountable, and build a safety culture we are very proud of.”
That’s why we partnered with SAVI EHS and the ABC Central Florida Safety Captive Program to develop our corporate Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) program. Through the ABC Safety Captive Program, and with support from SAVI EHS, we now have dedicated safety managers who visit our sites to assist our team and help us improve safety operations.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
One of the biggest advantages of the ABC Safety Captive Program is its focus on people and prevention. We developed a custom safety program that was always People First, from pre-construction and sub-contractor outreach to setting site logistics, worker orientation, Day One Follow Up, Daily Morning Meetings, Daily Worker Engagement, and forecasting upcoming risks and hazards. We always focus on People First.
We now have fantastic worker engagement on our projects. This has led to our success.
“Every company is in a different place when it comes to safety. Our goal is to meet contractors where they are and provide scalable support that moves them forward.”
Real Results, Real Commitment
We are very proud of the results thus far. Our teams are engaged; they communicate, collaborate, and look out for each other onsite.
By putting People First since our company’s inception in 2023, we have had ZERO recordable incidents and ZERO lost time incidents on our projects.
Even with minor issues, our team takes every opportunity to learn and improve. We follow a consistent process of root cause analysis and corrective action to strengthen our safety practices and prevent future incidents. It's part of our commitment to continuous improvement.
More Than Just Jobsite Safety, We focus on People
Our safety program isn't limited to the field. We bring the same level of care and accountability to our corporate team and processes. Safety is the first topic of discussion during all our meetings—internal, external, with clients, partners, and vendors. We're building a safety-first culture that touches every part of the business.
By partnering with SAVI EHS, we've created a safety program that we are very proud of. We've created a safety program that is engaging and proactive. We've created a Safety Program that Focuses on People. Special thanks to both Danny Palanuk and Christian Deater for their leadership and mentorship.
Quote from Mr. Palanuk “Here is One of Life’s Equations: Construction is all about the numbers. Numbers become most important when they are tied to people’s lives. Remember it’s not about numbers, it’s about People”
