ACT Safe, a Sioux City business focused on assisting companies with compliance issues, is looking forward to a record year after receiving their 8(a) certification.
ACT Safe plans to hire 15–20 new employees and hopes to secure more government contracts like the one that currently has founder Lorna Puntillo working with the Florida Veterans Administration on environmental remediation.
Puntillo worked with the CIRAS Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) to achieve the 8(a) designation, which makes ACT Safe eligible for sole-sourced and set-aside government contracts.
ACT Safe was founded in 2011 by Puntillo, a veteran with nearly 30 years of experience in environmental, health, and safety compliance. She started her career as a bio-environmental engineering specialist in the U.S. Air Force. Later, she worked with several Fortune 500 companies and served as the Environmental Protection Commissioner for the State of Iowa. In her current role, she is the liaison between clients and regulatory agencies, handling everything from audits to reports to remediation strategies to training on preventive solutions.
“I had all of this experience and knowledge, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to put it together to win government contracts,” Puntillo said. “That’s where CIRAS was a big help. They helped me understand the parameters of government contracting and the importance of narrowing my focus. I had done some work on my own, but those were dollars wasted compared to everything CIRAS was able to do for me.”
For more, contact Mary Zimmerman at maryz@iastate.edu or 515-450-1278.