Antar-Com sales jump post 9/11

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.-Within recent months, systems integrator Antar-Com Inc. has seen sales increase nearly 50 percent when compared to last year. The reason, say company officials, are new installation contracts won by the firm to secure the area's municipal buildings, hospitals, courthouses and other locations. "In the post 9/11 world, corporations and enterprises are taking their security needs much more seriously than they once were," said Danny Putnam, president and co-principal of the company with Isac Tabib, vice president of technology. "You can't ignore that that is factoring in." Contracts the company is now working on include securing all the government buildings in the county of Westchester, a New York City science museum, and a major New York City hospital. Antar-Com, which is also in the telecommunications business, was recently awarded a contract to install the security system in a courthouse now being constructed in Brooklyn. That multi-million dollar project is expected to take 33 months to complete. "We're probably one of the fastest rising high-end systems integration companies in the U.S. as far as contracts awarded and projects we're involved in," said Len Maleonskie, vice president of sales for Antar-Com. To keep up with the demand, the company has added nearly 15 new employees to its staff over the last seven months, which now totals 75 people. One of those additions was Maleonskie, who was brought on board to create a sales department for the traditionally engineering company. Today, the company employs eight sales people who spend their time locating new security projects and bidding on them. The company also increased its CAD engineering department to five people. Many of those new contracts are helping Antar-Com fulfill its five-year business plan. Part of the plan's goal is to reach $25 million in annual sales and the company is already at the $20 million mark this year, only a year and a half into the plan.