Brooklyn's Progress
November 2004

By Manuel Burgos

LRS Communications, a wireless communications sales and service company headquartered in Brooklyn’s Sunset Industrial Park, was recently awarded a contract with the NYC Department of Education to supply two-way radios, batteries and chargers to the 1,200 public schools of New York City.

"LRS Communications competed against and beat out several out-of-state companies.  This contract is a major hurdle crossed because so much business is given to out-of-state companies that are often able to offer lower bids.  We are extremely pleased for LRS especially since they had not participated in major government contracting in recent years," said Fred Graves, Manager at the NYC Business Solutions Center at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

Through a referral made by Mr. Graves, LRS Communications attended a training course sponsored by the NYC Office of Procurement that provided instruction on how to secure city contracts.  Thanks to that training, LRS learned about The City Record, which provides information about public hearings, agency rule changes, court notices, procurement actions, contract awards, and other information.  LRS now diligently monitors this publication and others every week, searching for new opportunities.  Mr. Graves also entered LRS into the Softshare Bid Matchmaking program, which is the city government’s request for proposals (RFP) system that automatically generates RFPs for companies in specific industry sectors. 
 
The training LRS received helped them to bid successfully on the Department of Education contract as well as a number of smaller contracts. Gordon Richards of the NYC Office of Procurement taught the class, which is repeated twice monthly in downtown Manhattan. Thanks to Mr. Richard’s training, LRS monitors city and state announcements, as well as the bids posted across the country through FedBizOpps (http://www.fedbizopps.gov/), the single government point-of-entry (GPE) for federal government procurement opportunities over $25,000.

Thanks to the training and technical assistance of the Brooklyn Chamber, the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and the city's Procurement Office, new opportunities have been opened for LRS Communications with city, state and federal governments of which the company otherwise would have been unaware. The training and assistance have also opened subcontracting opportunities that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Brooklyn Chamber Member Manuel Burgos is the Director of Marketing & Communications for LRS Communications, Inc., a Brooklyn-based provider of wireless communications sales and service to the New York City Metropolitan Area for over 13 years, including emergency communications for Nextel, several Fortune 500 businesses, and transportation companies in the days following 9/11.  Mr. Burgos may be reached at 718-499-4141 ext. 926, at manuelburgos@lrscommunications.com, or visit the Web site at http://www.lrscommunications.com/.