A Belle Plaine, Iowa, maker of display panel walls is looking forward to a record year after CIRAS helped the company find more than $130,000 in government contracts through its BidMatch computer service.
Kathy Kyle, owner of Pareti Mobile Walls, credits Julie Fagle, a government contracting specialist with the CIRAS Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC), for helping her company rebound after pandemic-related difficulties in 2020.
Pareti Mobile Walls sells movable walls for uses such as trade shows, museum displays, and pop-up retail stores. The company was growing quickly at the end of 2019. Then everything simply stopped because of COVID-19.
By August, after COVID-related shutdowns, the company was facing challenges. Then Fagle noted a potential improvement in how Pareti had signed up for BidMatch, a service that enables CIRAS to send clients emails with government bidding opportunities relevant for that particular business. Pareti Mobile Walls hadn’t received any notices of contracting opportunities for months. When Fagle tweaked the process, floodgates opened.
Kyle said the latest contract landed with Fagle’s assistance will bring in more than $130,000 as part of an agreement to build a Target Identification Training Center—a facility where military and police can practice various combat and rescue scenarios. She praised CIRAS for the help in landing it.
“Without CIRAS, we never would have seen this contract,” Kyle said. “Every Iowa business should take advantage of what CIRAS offers…. It’s crazy not to!”
For more information, contact Julie Fagle at jafagle@iastate.edu or 319-310-8612.