Lowell-based Central Research announces $30 million annual government contract

The Lowell-based Central Research announced Friday (Nov. 6) it was recently awarded a four-year Service Center Operations Support Services contract along with FCi Federal. The contract is with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The contract is for $20 million to $30 million each year for four years, said Dr. Johnny Dillard, Central Research founder and CEO. The Service Center Operations Support Services (SCOSS) contract provides administrative and records management support services for USCIS Service Center Operations with approximately 2,700 government employees in four states. SCOSS-A includes the Dallas, and Lincoln, Neb., Service Centers. The Service Centers handle correspondence management, data collection, fee collection, and file operations supporting USCIS immigration services, according to a press release.

Dillard said during Friday’s press conference they have already been able to help make processes more efficient and have eliminated much of the backlog in immigration-related applications that they inherited, which ultimately saves taxpayers money.

“Delivering high quality performance and on-target results to federal agency clients is at the heart of our core business philosophy, and Central Research is extremely pleased to partner with FCi and be selected by USCIS to lead the SCOSS-A program at the Texas and Nebraska Service Centers,” Dillard said in the press release. “Considering that each year the service centers handle millions of applications for immigration benefits and deposit over $1 billion in fees, the function of the service centers is vitally important to the mission of the U.S. government and USCIS. We are extremely proud to be part of the process.”

This contract will result in about 350 jobs in Texas and several hundred more in the Lincoln center. A few more administration jobs have been created in the Lowell office, he added. Central Research recently earned another federal contract with the U.S. Department of Education as a call center for student loans. This contract will require between 50 and 150 local jobs in the next year, he said.

Several officials were on hand for the announcement, including U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark.

“It’s an honor to be here to celebrate the growth of this business,” he said, reiterating the cost-savings to taxpayers as a whole and the jobs being created.

Steve Cox, director of economic development at the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce, said even though most the new jobs will not be in this area, the announcement still has a positive impact on Northwest Arkansas and the state.

“Any time you inject that much money into a local company it’s going to have an impact,” he said. “It’s great that a local company is able to make this significant of an announcement.”

Central Research is a service disabled veteran-owned small business and SBA-certified small business, with program and office locations in Arkansas, Virginia, Washington D.C., Texas, Nebraska, New Mexico and Arizona. It provides records management, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Privacy Act (PA), legal/paralegal, logistics, systems engineering, research, debt collection, and data and information technology services to approximately 13 different federal agencies and organizations. With full business operations since 2006, Central Research is one of the fastest growing small business federal contractors in the country during the last 12 months.