PURVIS thrives amid growing focus on safety

PURVIS SYSTEMS has been expanding its existing offices and has opened a new one in Phoenix. Above, marketing manager Richard Foster, left, meets with Antoine E. Gharios, director of corporate business development. /
PURVIS SYSTEMS has been expanding its existing offices and has opened a new one in Phoenix. Above, marketing manager Richard Foster, left, meets with Antoine E. Gharios, director of corporate business development. /

PURVIS Systems Inc., a Middletown-based IT systems and service provider for the public safety, emergency management and defense industries that has been operating in Rhode Island for more than three decades, is pushing into new markets and expanding nationally.
In recent months, PURVIS has beefed up its staff in Middletown and Virginia, opened a new office in Phoenix, Ariz., begun work on a comprehensive port security project funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, developed new products for emergency responders and fire departments and secured two contracts with the U.S. Navy worth a combined $36.7 million.
At the same time, the company has continued to penetrate the local public safety market. PURVIS recently began providing its communications and data management systems to the Rhode Island chapter of the American Red Cross and the fire departments of East Providence, Central Coventry and Harmony, and the company now has contracts with about 85 percent of all municipalities in the state.
“We’ve had some good stuff going on,” said Rick Foster, PURVIS marketing manager. “We see a tremendous opportunity for our business, and we basically want to take the experience that we’ve gained over the last 35 years and apply that to extend our reach a little bit.”
To a great extent, PURVIS’s current growth stems from efforts to protect the country against terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. There is more federal funding and demand for technology solutions that PURVIS has specialized in for many years, said Tony Gharios, the company’s director of business development.
PURVIS was founded in 1973 by three colleagues who had worked for a defense contractor developing a sonar system primarily for the Navy, and since its inception the company has worked steadily for the Navy at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport and the Navy’s base in Virginia Beach.
At the same time, PURVIS has always provided state-of-the-art communications systems to emergency responders, including the New York City Fire Department.
In recent years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and public safety departments across the country have poured billions of dollars into increasing their radio and data interoperability to better respond to terrorist attacks, events like the recent Virginia Tech shooting rampage and natural catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, Gharios said.
In an example of a new niche that PURVIS is penetrating, the company is partnering with several other technology firms and academics to develop UPSIDE, an underwater perimeter security system that connects underwater sensors to an automated crisis response system usable by both the military and environmental officials, Gharios said.
PURVIS is also partnering with the West Warwick-based electronic health records firm ER Card to put electronic health records in the hands of emergency medical technicians responding to 911 calls, Foster said.
And PURVIS is considering partnerships with other firms that would enable the company to begin providing communication and data solutions in the border security arena, Gharios said.
The company opened its Phoenix office in January, and plans to grow its business in the Washington, D.C. and New England regions.
PURVIS also has begun offering new products it recently developed, including a bundle of products for fire departments called the FD Manager Suite, which includes a dispatch system, a data collection and mobile reporting solution, a records management solution and an automates fire inspection system.
Another of the company’s new products is its Emergency Notification System, which enables organizations to quickly and efficiently deliver mass messages to emergency response personnel. The system was recently adopted by the state chapter of the American Red Cross, enabling the organization’s nine employees to instantly reach its 600 volunteers spread across the state. The Red Cross accesses PURVIS’s Web-based ENS application using a user name and password, where they can transmit messages out over any type of device in the hands of their volunteers, including telephones, cell phones and pagers.
The ENS system can also be accessed by the Red Cross via a touch-tone telephone system in situations where emergency managers are traveling or don’t have access to a computer. •

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