L.R. Kimball’s public-safety-communications unit becomes part of Federal Engineering
“We’ve done some PSAP systems—the computer systems, the AVL, the dispatch—but not a lot,” Bosco said. “Maybe two or three years ago, we decided that’s a growing business, and we wanted to provide all services to our clients. So we started putting more emphasis on the PSAP business, we’ve won probably a dozen jobs … but it’s a slow-growth process—as you can imagine—because we haven’t been in that business for 33 years. Well, Kimball has been in that business for between 20 and 30 years.
“The business we wanted to grow into was the business that CDI wanted to get out of—it was like a match made in heaven. So that was the real impetus behind bringing Kimball into FE [Federal Engineering].”
Having expertise on both the radio side and the 911 side of public-safety communications is particularly important today, as many first-responder agencies are expected to seek solutions that integrate next-generation 911 technology with myriad radio technologies in the future, Bosco said.
“FE-Kimball is the only firm in the industry that has 30 years experience in all of those technologies,” Bosco said.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. When asked if this transaction was a purchase or buyout, Bosco said he could not “go into the details,” but the L.R. Kimball unit is now part of Federal Engineering.