Peter Smith, AMERICAN SYSTEMS COO, spoke to ExecutiveBiz about his firm’s success and what it will take to continue that legacy: “We are very proud that we rose to that occasion and that we were recognized as the contractor of the year and I recognize that what got us there was the very solid work that we had been doing. So, we want to build on the success. Last year was a very good year as well. We had a record-breaking business development year, or sales year, with $400 million worth of new contracts awarded to AMERICAN SYSTEMS. We are going to concentrate on continuing that by growing organically and bidding aggressively as a prime on large opportunities, both where we’re known and where we’re not so well known. Where we are known, we’re going to work hard to make sure our existing customers are aware of the full scope of capability that AMERICAN SYSTEMS has, building on our good reputation and looking for them to allow us to grow into other areas with them. And where we have new customers who we’re facing, we’re going to work hard to make sure they’re looking at AMERICAN SYSTEMS in the correct light. An example here is our work with the Navy Facilities Command on advanced metering infrastructure. In one of the first conversations I had with that customer they said, “Peter, we don’t know AMERICAN SYSTEMS as an energy company. Why would we ask you to come work in this energy field with us?” and what we had to work to help them understand is, you’re right, we’re not an energy company, we are engineering company that can help you understand your energy usage through monitoring and reporting.”
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