Who We Are
Our History
KB Advising LLC (KBA) was started by Stephen Kaerwer and Juan Bossano in 2020 to focus on providing disaster recovery and emergency preparedness support to local governments, state governments, non-profit organizations, US territories, and Tribal Nations. Juan and Stephen have a combined 20 years of experience in disaster recovery, across many different sectors, from grant writing to project management to business development. They left their senior positions at a major firm with a mission to build a top tier professional consulting company that could be the partner that clients deserve. Combined, Juan and Stephen have helped their clients obtain over $10 billion in federal grants relating to disaster recovery and COVID relief.
Milestones
In the first year, KB Advising led two major Emergency Rental Assistance Programs – Texas ERAP and Minnesota ERAP. Stephen and Juan were brought on to the programs to lead a total staff of over 2,000 across both programs to set up the programs, manage the operations, interface directly with the clients, interpret and enforce policies, and provide any other programmatic support requested. Both programs were a tremendous success, with both in the top 10 out of all states in percentage of funds disbursed by the end of 2021.
The two programs combined disbursed over $1.2 billion in 2021 in rental assistance. KB Advising continues support in both Texas and Minnesota but has grown to project manage Kansas ERAP and Kansas HAF.
Who We Are
KBA is a rapidly growing group of working professionals who specialize in federal grant programs, primarily disaster recovery, emergency preparedness, and Covid relief programs. Our team focuses on data driven outcomes and efficient, organized project management to ensure our clients’ needs are met on time.
Leadership
Stephen Kaerwer
Co-Founder
Stephen Kaerwer
Stephen Kaerwer is a Co-Founder of KB Advising with over 10 years of experience in disaster recovery and emergency preparedness. Along with dozens of small disasters, Stephen has worked on major disasters in Louisiana, Texas, New York, and Puerto Rico. He has expertise in federal grants ranging from CDBG-DR to all FEMA programs to Covid relief programs.
Stephen is an expert in all aspects of federal grant programs from initiation to compliance to grants management. For the past 5 years, Stephen has worked as project manager for multiple projects and as a mitigation sector lead. Recently, he has had the opportunity to support some of the largest housing programs in the nation, and he led a team of over 1,000 members working on the Texas Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
Over the course of his career, Stephen has assisted his clients in obtaining over $5 billion in federal grants. This funding has come from CDBG-DR, FEMA HMGP, FEMA PA, CARES Act funding, and ARPA funding. He strongly believes that all grant recipients deserve better support from the consulting industry, but as a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, he is particularly passionate about finding opportunities to help Tribal Nations navigate grant administration.
Juan Bossano
Juan Bossano is a Co-Founder of KB Advising with over 10 years of experience in disaster recovery and emergency preparedness. He has worked on most of the major disasters of the last 15 years, such as Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Superstorm Sandy in New York, and Hurricanes Irma and Maria in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Along with those major disaster events, Juan has worked on over a dozen other smaller disasters throughout his career. While he worked part of his career on FEMA PA and CDBG-DR, Juan has worked considerably on FEMA HMGP before co-founding KBA. Over the past year, he has focused on Covid relief programs, primarily leading Minnesota’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program.
Juan served as the Director of Mitigation Operations at his previous company and managed the entire HMGP grant for the US Virgin Islands. While the total budget at the time was $462M, due to the spending projections on the FEMA PA side, he led the team in preparing over $900M in HMGP grant applications in anticipation of the total budget increase.
Throughout his career, Juan has managed over $6 billion in federal grants for his clients, assisting in obtaining the funding, remaining in compliance, and managing the projects. He is an expert in HMGP, PA, CDBG-DR, BRIC, CARES Act, and ARPA funding.
