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Bomb containment company gets accolade
NABCO Inc., which is headquartered in Southpointe and has manufacturing operations on Baird Avenue in Washington, has been making equipment to protect military and police bomb squads from suspicious packages, luggage and other potentially explosive materials for more than two decades.
The company, which employs about 20 people, received the award from the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce in Pittsburgh, which helps the company with its exports. NABCO Chief Executive Officer Frank Tobin noted that the company does business in 30 countries.
The presentation of an "Export Achievement Certificate" was made by U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair.
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Lyn Doverspike, director of the Commerce Department's U.S. Export Assistance Center in Pittsburgh, said she works with exporting companies here to help them stay abreast of rules and regulations of doing international business.
Tobin said the company's international business has grown substantially over the years, and many countries "still look at the U.S. as an expert when it comes to (countering) threats." He and Gibala said the company will make presentations soon to the United Arab Emeriates, Saudi Arabia, Denmark and India.
Gibala said Doverspike's office helped her to establish contact with people with whom the company would be working in England.
"Christine makes sure we don't run afoul of any regulations" when doing business overseas, Tobin said. "A lot of times, it's very difficult for a small company."
NABCO counts a number of law enforcement agencies, military units and airports around the world as customers who need its bomb containment units and its more recent units that can handle disposal, detonation and sampling of chemical, biological, radioactive or nuclear devices, referred to as CBRN, including so-called "dirty bombs."
Tobin said NABCO, which has sold 60 units to the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy over the years, is now looking to upgrade the units with CBRN capabilities.
On this side of the ocean, NABCO, which is the U.S. leader in explosive containment and storage vessels, has its products in use by the Pittsburgh, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Chicago police forces, as well as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, FBI, CIA and National Security Agency.
During a demonstration outside NABCO's administrative offices at 1001 Corporate Drive, Ronald Liston, a detective with the Pittsburgh Police Bomb Squad, showed how the company's bomb containment unit can be operated by remote control, enabling bomb technicians to place a suspected bomb inside the chamber, seal it, then drive it onto a trailer for transport to a safe site where the bomb can be detonated and samples taken of any gases to determine bomb contents.
Liston said the unit was initiated at the 2006 All-Star game at PNC Park and also was taken to the 2007 PGA tournament at Oakmont Country Club. He said the unit is taken to many large, public gatherings as a precaution.
According to Liston, the squad has used the unit only once in an actual emergency, but he noted that the units are constructed to be used multiple times.
Tobin, who recently joined NABCO from Lockheed Corp., and NABCO founder and Chief Operating Officer Randy Markey said the company is growing and has a goal of consolidating its administrative and manufacturing operations somewhere in Washington County.
"The good news is we exceeded our numbers last year, and we should see 7 to 10 percent growth this year," Tobin said. "The goal is to get everybody together" at one site.
NABCO was started in 1986, when brothers Jay and Randy Markey took a defunct family business, National Annealing Box Co., and, using a bomb containment vessel that the company had developed for the U.S. Navy, created a new company, NABCO, that focused solely on that niche.
