Building a successful cleaning company is one accomplishment. Keeping it growing year after year is another. Helping other people build their own futures along the way is what the ISSA VEO Visionario Award was created to recognize.

Nancy Galván, founder and CEO of Unica Enterprises in Dallas, and Veronica Vidal, founder and CEO of Custom Cleaning and Management Services (CCMS) in Florida, were among the 2026 Visionario Award winners at the ISSA VEO Conference in Dallas this September. The award draws its meaning from VEO itself: Visión, Empeño, Oportunidad, or vision, determination and opportunity.

Independent restoration companies make up a large share of the industry, and many of them operate without the corporate support, shared systems or national network a franchise brand provides. For the Restoration Industry Association (RIA), that gap is the reason its work for independents has become a priority. Earlier this year the association launched its Voice of the Independent Task Force, an advisory group meant to make sure the independent perspective shapes RIA strategy.

Eric Marceleño started working for his wife’s janitorial company in February 2016. He didn’t wait until morning to get started. “The night that I was hired, we got immediately to work, stayed up to about two or three in the morning, contacting contracting officers by email, text and just trying to market the company, get our name out in front of all the contracting officers, federal contracting officers across the Southwest,” Marceleño said during a Straight Talk! podcast taped right before the 2026 ISSA VEOConference in Dallas.