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May 9 (UPI) -- Gentex Corp. has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Marine Corps for enhanced combat helmets and related data reports. The deal, announced Tuesday by the Department of Defense, is valued at more than $45.2 million. The contract is a modification to a previous award under the terms of a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract.
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The contract, from Marine Corps Systems Command, enables Gentex Corporation to increase the quantity of helmets to 150,176 from 84,376, increasing the total cumulative value of the deal by more than $99.6 million, according to the Defense Department.
Work on the contract will occur in Simpson, Pa., and is expected to be complete by May 2022. More than $22.3 million will be obligated to Gentex Corporation at time of award from Marine Corps fiscal 2018 operations and maintenance funds.
The press release said that the obligated funds will expire at the end of the current fiscal year in September.
Since 2013, Marines have been issued the enhanced combat helmet when they were preparing to deploy overseas.
In 2017, Gentex Corporation was contracted for additional enhanced combat helmets to be used in both training and on deployment, eliminating the process of trading in a training helmet for a deployment helmet.
"The ECH [enhanced combat helmet] is the helmet of the future Marine," ECH project officer Maj. John Draper told Military.com in June 2017. "It's important for Marines to train with the same gear they will bring into combat."
