[Mb-civic] Subcontractor's Story Details Post-9/11 Chaos - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

<>Subcontractor's Story Details Post-9/11 Chaos
New Company Had Little Oversight

By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Scott Higham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 28, 2005; Page A01

Three years ago, Sunnye L. Sims lived in a two-bedroom apartment north 
of San Diego, paying $1,025 in monthly rent. Then she landed a dream 
job, with $5.4 million in pay for nine months of work.

Now she owns a $1.9 million stucco mansion with lofty ceilings on a 
hilltop, featuring sun-splashed palm trees and a circular driveway.

"She really went uphill," said Jerry Collins, a maintenance man at her 
former apartment complex who recalled Sims talking about her ambitions.

Sims is not a Hollywood starlet. She is a meeting-and-events planner who 
built her fortune on a U.S. government contract. In 2002, her tiny 
company secured a no-bid subcontract to manage logistics on an urgent 
federal project to protect the nation's airports in the wake of the 
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

<>Sims, now 42, recruited hundreds of people to help hire a government 
force of 60,000 airline passenger screeners on a tight deadline. With 
little experience, her tiny company was asked to help set up and run 
screener-assessment centers in a hurry at more than 150 hotels and other 
facilities. Her company eventually billed $24 million.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/27/AR2005072702436.html 

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