Derry Firm's 'Election Win' Celebrated

As America commemorates Independence Day this Sunday, a Co Londonderry company has also been celebrating a $500,000 contract - to supply more voting booths to the United States.

The 4th July celebrations are doubly important as it is a small family-owned company that has been 'elected' to supply the vital equipment. The deal with Westchester County Board of Elections, means that the Pakflatt Group has won almost $1m worth of new business in the United States, in the past nine months.

The latest contract for the supply and delivery of Pakflatt's Benjamin Franklin Voting Booths was welcomed by chartered engineer Patrick McGonagle - founder and Managing Director of the Pakflatt Group.

Announcing this major achievement today, he commented: "We work in a very dynamic market place with extremely capable, competent and aggressive competition.

"For a small family business to come into New York State and win one of the big three counties in the State, is a strong performance by any standard," he said, noting that "market penetration in the last nine months has been very impressive".

"We have generated business in just over 100 counties across 22 states with sales of some 1,700 Benjamin Franklin Booth packages.

"Going forward we are extremely confident that we can take our business and brand to the next level.

"At this stage in our US development plan, we know we have the product design right, our intellectual property assets are in position and with our national re-seller network, we've got sales and marketing cover from coast to coast.

"The NDC in Virginia provides us with distribution coverage nationally and it is our intention that this new facility, will develop its own Benjamin Franklin assembly line later this year and provide us with a useful back-up for our Springtown operation in dealing with customers in the United States, Canada and the US National Territories," he said.

Meanwhile, alongside further growth in the United States, Pakflatt is targeting new business further afield: "We are currently engaged in developing a new business relationship in Japan and will be getting to work in the coming months to step our activity up a gear throughout the Far East which we believe has significant potential for us."

Based in Springtown Industrial Estate, Londonderry, Pakflatt employs just 20 people and has been recognised as one of the NI's most progressive small manufacturing companies and named by a leading business journal as one of ten Northern Ireland companies to watch.

The company's US activities first attracted attention in 2008 when its classical V4 booth was used to re-equip every one of Washington DC's 750 polling stations.

The first shipment of polling booths for elections in Westchester left Springtown on Friday June 18 and arrived there today (2 July) - just in time for American Independence Day - marking one of the ultimate celebrations of democracy at work.

(BMcC/GK)