Through a pandemic, hurricane and the everyday complexities of government contracts, Beacon Point Associates has continued to provide solutions for the largest and second largest healthcare systems in the nation

Supporting the Mission

Through a pandemic, hurricane and the everyday complexities of government contracts, Beacon Point Associates has continued to provide solutions for the largest and second largest healthcare systems in the nation.

January 2020, Team Meeting in Cape Coral, Florida. Attendees wore shirts from Habitat for Humanity.

While serving in the Supply Corps of the U.S. Navy, Jeff Summerour picked up many valuable, transferable skills

that would serve him well in the med/surg industry. During his years of service and various assignments, he developed an expertise in the government acquisition, contracting and procurement processes.

After retirement as a senior Navy Supply Officer, Summerour joined a small regional distribution company and led their Government Business Development team. That company grew from $20 million when he joined in 1999 to $330 million when he resigned in 2012, with his team responsible for $256 million in sales as the most profitable and highest growth part of the business year over year. In January 2013, Summerour started Beacon Point Associates, LLC as a verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) offering contracting solutions to marketshare leading and specialty medical equipment manufacturers for sales into the Federal Health Care sector.

“In starting Beacon Point Associates, I felt we could offer more to the government customers and medical equipment manufacturers who sold to them by focusing on what we do best, which is providing contracting solutions and assisting our manufacturer partners in the development of an effective go-tomarket strategy for the federal government,” Summerour said.

Customer complexities

Beacon Point’s primary customers are the largest and second largest healthcare systems in the nation, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) Health Systems. Together

they represent over 200 hospitals and 2,000 clinics worldwide. “We support their missions by providing effective and efficient ways of purchasing the medical equipment and supplies they need from the manufacturers we represent,” Summerour said. “In short, from the customer perspective we make it easy for them to do business with us and buy the products they need on our contracts.”

In April 2020, Beacon Point was awarded a $600 million, five-year, Hospital Equipment contract by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which is commonly referred to as an Electronic Catalog (ECAT). More recently, in February 2022, the distributor was awarded a $366 million, five-year Medical/Surgical ECAT contract. In addition, Beacon Point has Distribution and Pricing Agreements (DAPAs) which are for sales through the Medical/Surgical Prime Vendors. Other contracts include a Just-In-Time Delivery (Bill Only) ECAT, Blanket Purchase Agreements and the ability to do SDVOSB setaside contracts. “We are continually looking to expand our contract portfolio and are currently pursuing several additional contracts.”

Beacon Point’s other customers are its manufacturer partners, Summerour said, whose products the distributor features and maintains on contracts. By doing the contract management functions, including maintaining the audit risk, Beacon Point removes a huge barrier to entry in working with the federal government by ensuring manufacturers’ products are on a contract that the government recognizes and can easily purchase from. Beacon Point does the order fulfillment functions, coordinates shipping, and provides payments within established terms so that its manufacturer partners do not have to collect directly from the government, which can be difficult for anyone – especially for those not used to the complexities of the federal acquisition process.

Beacon Point’s people and culture are key to the distributor’s success.

‘Our team did not miss a beat’

In the last few years, Beacon Point has had to navigate more than just the complexity of the acquisition process with the federal government. The pandemic affected all facets of the economy, including the federal government and its operations. “While there were supply chain and product availability problems, we were fortunate in that our business did not suffer,” Summerour said. “Since we sell primarily equipment into the Federal Health Care sector and with patient contact and elective surgeries severely curtailed, the funds normally used for consumables were redirected to upgrading and accelerating replacement schedules of their critical equipment infrastructure. We are now seeing a return to a more normalized demand for medical equipment and supplies in both the VA and DoD.”

Most recently, Beacon Point was affected by Hurricane Ian. The company’s corporate office was without power and internet for about two weeks, and a third of its staff was impacted by the hurricane in some way. This was especially concerning because the hurricane hit during the government’s fiscal year-end, which is Beacon Point’s busiest time of the year.

“I am pleased to say that our team did not miss a beat,” Summerour noted. No orders were delayed, and the team met all of Beacon’s Service Level Agreements (SLA) to both its customers and manufacturer partners. “Our ability to effectively respond during the aftermath of this devastating hurricane is due to our amazing team, lessons learned from Hurricane Irma in 2017, and decisions we made early in our company’s history.”

Beacon Point’s unaffected team members, who were previously cross-trained, pulled together and worked long shifts to process orders and support those impacted. They had generators on standby as well as water and internet hot spots. “Also, because early on we decided to hire the best and brightest team members regardless of their location, we had developed distributed systems that can operate anywhere and resources that could be reallocated remotely,” Summerour said. “This included our phone systems as well as our internally developed cloud-based computer systems, neither of which were impacted at all by the hurricane.”

Keys to success

Summerour said Beacon Point’s people are one of two keys to the success of the organization. “We have some of the most experienced and well-trained team members of any company I know,” he said. “Well over half of our team has 10 or more years of experience in the industry with many of us having over 20 years of experience.” Additionally, every member of the team, from accounting to information technology to customer service, is certified in the Health Industry Distributors Association (HIDA) Accredited in Medical Sales (AMS) program. This ensures everyone understands the industry they are in and how their role in the company contributes to the company’s success in taking care of customers and manufacturer partners.

Culture is the second key to Beacon Point’s success. “We are a highperformance team focused on doing the right things for our customers and manufacturer partners, actively prioritizing their needs in day-to-day decisions at every level of the company,” Summerour said. “Our goal is

Supporting veterans

Beacon Point recognizes and embraces its responsibility to be a good community business partner, especially to the veteran community, said Summerour. “We actively look to hire veterans and almost half of our team are veterans.”

The distributor also supports several charities, primarily focusing on veterans and programs that support active-duty military members that have been injured. Examples include Habitat for Humanity where Beacon Point has sponsored houses built for veterans in need of affordable housing, the Navy Safe Harbor Foundation, Toys-4-Tots, Shop-With-A-Cop, Calvary Children’s Home, and the Wounded Warrior Regiment.

Michael Summerour and Tom Summerour, Beacon Point Senior Government Account Managers and Jeff Summerour, Beacon Point President

to provide value to our partners with every interaction, at every level.”

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, Beacon Point empowers team members to make decisions that benefit the customer and manufacturer partners. “We want to have everyone we interact with say, ‘Beacon Point Associates is easy to do business with’.”

Introducing carts you can customize like your latte order

Over a million configurations possible and a thousand standard models. Let’s see your favorite coffee shop top that.