Service-disabled veteran-owned company lands security guard contract in Africa

Jerry Torres

The U.S. Department of State has awarded a $3.8 million contract for guard services at the American Embassy in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, a landlocked country in eastern Africa, to a joint venture comprised of a service-disabled veteran-owned U.S. business, headquartered in Arlington, VA, and a company based in Burundi.

The U.S. side of the joint venture is held by Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, headed by a former longtime U.S. Special Forces soldier, Jerry Torres, while the African side is being handled by Les Vigiles Burundais, according to a contract award announcement posted by the State Department on July 19.

Under the contract, which envisions a base year plus four optional years, the JV will protect the U.S. Embassy in Bujumbura by preventing entry by unauthorized personnel; operating a walk-through metal detector, hand-held detectors and electronic and hydraulic barriers; and providing surveillance by motor patrol.

Torres told Inc. magazine he became disabled in late 2003 while he was in Afghanistan. “We were in a gunfight, and I was running across a wall,” Torres told the publication that tracks business entrepreneurialism. “A round hit my breastplate from the side, and I was knocked down. I fell an entire floor and landed on my head. I broke a vertebra in the middle of my back and some bones in my neck.”

In 2002, Torres formed his company, which now offers a wide variety of services to government customers, including translation services in foreign outposts. His firm landed a State Department contract to provide 40 linguists to the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. “When the President, the Vice President, or any senior diplomats go to Baghdad,” Torres told Inc. magazine, “we’re the ones who serve as interpreters.”

In 2009, Jerry Torres, was presented the “Executive of the Year Award” at the 7th Annual Greater Washington Government Contractor Awards in Washington, DC, according to a company press release.

Further information about the security guard contract in Burundi is available from Jon Troyer, a State Department contracting officer, at 571-345-2388 or TroyerJR@state.gov.