BAE in infrastructure agreement

HOUSTON, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- BAE Systems and New York's Composite Technologies have signed an exclusive teaming agreement in pursuit of a U.S. infrastructure protection contract.

"The threat of terrorism made our nation much more aware of our vulnerabilities, especially in regards to critical infrastructure," said John Kelly, vice president of business winning at BAE Systems Land and Armaments.

"While protecting crucial infrastructure is challenging, our Infratection Solutions business has developed unique and effective blast and impact resistant armor solutions specifically engineered to reinforce and strengthen key buildings, bridges and pipelines.

"Together, with Composite Technologies, we've developed armor solutions adaptable to numerous applications using technologies and materials previously reserved only for military applications."

BAE, long a producer of armor protection for vehicles, developed the Infratection Solution with Composite Technologies, a developer of products for critical infrastructure.

BAE said it had recently bid on a major U.S. infrastructure protection project but didn't identify the contract-granting organization. It also said there were several other infrastructure protection projects it could begin work on this year.