ArmorGroup Integrated eyes its eighth location in 2002

TAMPA, Fla.-It's been several years since ArmorGroup Integrated Systems added a new office, but this year the fire installation and systems integration company is considering opening its eighth location and possibly others in the U.S. "We're looking at markets up and down the eastern seaboard. We're looking at Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C. and Philadelphia," said Paul Fraleigh, president of ArmorGroup Integrated Systems, which does about $20 million in business each year in the U.S. with more than 50 percent of it on the fire side. "Right now we're exploring it either for a start up or acquisition." Fraleigh said ArmorGroup Integrated is interested in locating an office near others run by its parent company Armor Holdings, enabling them to tap into cross-selling opportunities and to provide opportunities to employees. Those businesses, under the name ArmorGroup Services, offer services such as guards, risk management and self defense training, along with a manufacturing arm that makes law enforcement products. "The thing that's driving us in that direction is to just expand our business to really accomplish some growth and also to complement other businesses that we have near those locations," said Fraleigh. "We're already in the vicinity of those states." Like ArmorGroup Inte-grated's other locations in New York, New Jersey, South Carolina and Florida, the new location will be able to offer a fine mist high pressure water extinguishement system. The company began offering the system in-house for the first time in late fall. "It opens a whole new market for us," said Ron Berger, president of ArmorGroup / Low Voltage Systems Technology's New York branch. "It allows us to be more than just alarm and detection. It allows us to provide more." Previously, the company had to source the product with another company to offer the system to its clients. Now, ArmorGroup has become a engineered systems distributor for Marioff, the maker of the suppression system. ArmorGroup will not only design the system to a building's specifications, but also install it. "It's a nice add on for our business," said Fraleigh. "This is sort of the missing piece. We now have all the different components in security and life safety,"