PTAC Helps TentCraft Respond to COVID-19 Crisis

TentCraft in Traverse City manufactures outdoor marketing elements such as pop-up tents, custom structures, flags, signage, and event solutions for businesses, popular brands, and agencies across North America. In 2019, TentCraft decided to look at opportunities for sales to the government and the Northwest Michigan Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) helped them do that.

“The PTAC provided invaluable information on registering in the various systems (and kept us from making mistakes), gave us examples of capability statements, helped us format our government page on the TentCraft website, as well as create our own capability statement,” said Matt Bulloch, TentCraft President.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit in 2020, TentCraft recognized a need for portable, quick-deploy medical screening and containment tents. They were able to start manufacturing those products for customers including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

“The PTAC has been helpful researching new opportunities,” said Bulloch. “These efforts, with the PTAC’s guidance, gave us an enormous amount of credibility with the VA when we worked with their individual hospitals and regions on COVID-19 screening products and mobile infirmaries.”

The assistance from the PTAC helped TentCraft make multiple sales to the government in just the first quarter of 2020.

“Our work with the PTAC has shown us that there is a world of opportunity for us to seize,” said Bulloch. “We look forward to continuing to work with the PTAC to bid on government contracts as they become available.”  

For more information about TentCraft, go to Tentcraft.com.

The Northwest Michigan PTAC is based in Traverse City and serves businesses in the northwest Lower Peninsula and the entire Upper Peninsula. The PTAC provides no-cost technical consulting, training, and marketing services aimed at assisting companies with obtaining and performing under local, state, and federal contracts. PTAC’s services include personalized one-on-one counseling, bid match notifications, contracting and subcontracting assistance, pre- and post-award assistance, and more. PTAC offers assistance through all stages of government contracting.

This procurement technical assistance center is funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency. This PTAC is funded in part by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), and is hosted by Networks Northwest. To learn more about PTAC’s services, visit nwm.org/ptac.