Companies seeking security- related contracts try to penetrate the seemingly impenetrable.
By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published May 28, 2003
ORLANDO - Tech companies starved for customers got mixed news at a forum here Tuesday.
The recently created federal Department of Homeland Security will have $800-million to spend next fiscal year on new technology. But, if the experience of Ocean Optics Inc. in Dunedin is any indicator, getting the business won't be easy.
The Tampa Bay area tech company developed a portable anthrax detector just weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Though it has sold about a dozen of the $5,000 units, Ocean Optics hasn't been able to attract business from the people charged with homeland defense.
Yvette Mattley, senior scientist with Ocean Optics, said sales have been hindered by the absence of a standardized certification for new technology and the sheer size of the federal government.
"It's very difficult to sell this without somebody's seal of approval," she said. "And then you just have to hope you run across the right people and put your literature in the right hands or it just gets thrown away."
About 250 companies hopeful of landing security-related contracts attended the conference sponsored by Enterprise Florida. Among the speakers was Connie Correll, who works for the U.S. Commerce Department office that acts as a portal to federal work for the private tech community.
"Our job is to make the government procurement process work better," said Correll, senior adviser in the office of technology administration. "But businesses should know buying decisions come two to three years down the line."
Correll said the Department of Homeland Security is looking for new technologies in alert and warning systems, information security, wireless, modeling and simulation, telecommunications, e-learning and smart-card technologies. The department has set up an e-mail address (science.technology@dhs.gov) for companies to submit proposals.
Federal agencies aren't the only ones with cash to spend on homeland security. Representatives of Florida's ports, health department and emergency management agency said they're seeking bids for everything from decontamination trailers to computer equipment to high-tech replacements for drug-sniffing dogs.
"Our dogs cost $95 an hour," said David McDonald, executive director of Port Manatee. "Those are the types of costs I'm hoping to reduce as we move to a new threshold of how we do business."
