Skip to Content

Pentagon, additional contracts result from GSA schedule

Pentagon, additional contracts result from GSA schedule

WESTMINSTER, Mass. - It didn’t take fire and systems integrator SimplexGrinnell long to reap the benefits of its newest schedule with the U.S. General Services Administration. The company, which earned a spot on the GSA schedule for maintenance and repair services in late September, recently secured a one-year contract to test and inspect the fire alarm and suppression systems at the Pentagon and other facilities in the National Capital Region. “Right after our GSA service agreement was in place and right before the end of the government fiscal year, we got a fax from the Pentagon,” said Mary Har-rington, spokeswoman for Sim-plexGrinnell’s GSA initiative. “We turned it around within days. It was quite an accomplishment.” SimplexGrinnell has already secured multiple contracts as a result of its GSA schedules for fire detection and alarm products, nurse call/patient response products and time solutions products, but this was the company’s first contract for maintenance and repair services for those products. Although Har-rington couldn’t comment on the value of the Pentagon contract, it is likely a nice boost for SimplexGrinnell, considering the company derives 50 percent of its revenue from service. Before contracting Simplex-Grinnell to test and inspect the fire alarm and suppression systems at the Pentagon, the work was done in-house, Harrington said. Per the contract, Simplex-Grinnell’s job will be the documentation and deficiency notation of all life-safety system devices, Harrington said. That includes the smoke detectors, pull stations, duct smoke detectors, panels, fire pumps and kitchen hoods in a building considered the “nerve center” for defense-related command and control in the United States. SimplexGrinnell is no stranger to the 3.7-million-square-foot Pentagon and its 17-plus miles of corridors. The company installed fire alarm systems there as part of the Pentagon Renovation Program, a multiyear initiative to renovate the Pentagon following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The company also conducted speech intelligibility testing of emergency evacuation systems in the Pentagon. “Obviously, fire and communications are very relevant to the government rightnow,” Harrington said. “This new contract complements our other work at the Pentagon nicely.” In fact, being a one-stop shop was the motivation behind being listed on the GSA schedule for maintenance and repair services, Harrington said. Sim-plexGrinnell wanted to give federal agencies as many ways as possible to reach its products and services. SimplexGrinnell earned its first contract requiring a GSA-approved vendor for security- and fire-related products in September 2002.

Comments

To comment on this post, please log in to your account or set up an account now.