Martinsburg company in federal contract pool

December 21, 2006|by MATTHEW UMSTEAD

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A Martinsburg company was one of more than 40 service-disabled, veteran-owned businesses awarded a U.S. General Services Administration government-wide contract potentially worth $5 billion over the next several years, the agency has announced.

HMS Technologies Inc., headquartered in a historic downtown red brick building at 206 W. Burke St., was the only West Virginia firm deemed to be qualified to provide information technology services to various federal agencies, company president and CEO Harry M. Siegal confirmed.

"It's a license to hunt - $5 billion," said Siegal, describing the award as "historic" and somewhat like getting a "clean bill of health" for the company from GSA, the centralized procurement agency created by Congress to improve government efficiency. The office, among other duties, acquires office space, equipment, telecommunications, information technology, supplies and services on behalf of federal agencies.

Siegal anticipated the announcement would allow his three-year-old company to provide long-term job opportunities in Berkeley County and possibly employ more than 1,000 people in the coming years.

"We won't get all $5 billion - nobody will," Siegal said, explaining how his company will be able to compete for federal procurements under the awarded contract.

"At GSA, we're doing our part to ensure that federal contracting opportunities are available to our nation's service-disabled veterans" said GSA's Administrator Lurita Doan in a news release Tuesday.

"These veterans placed the nation's security before their own lives, and that sacrifice creates a debt we can never fully repay, but we can and should try."

HMS was one of only 14 companies not based in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C., to be awarded what formally is known as the Veterans Technology for Services (VETS) Government-wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC).

In response to an executive order signed by President Bush in October 2004, GSA officials announced in February 2005 that it would request proposals from service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses for a government-wide acquisition contract that was reserved for them.

According to the GSA, the Veterans Entrepreneurship Act and Small Business Development Act of 1999 established an annual government-wide goal of not less than 3 percent of the value of prime contract and subcontract awards for participation by small business concerns owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans.

Siegal,a 1973 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, lives in Falling Waters, W.Va.

HMS Technologies Inc. promotes itself as an established Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Business (SDVOB) that integrates technology, partners and clients for the common goal of teamed success in both the Federal and commercial environments.

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