Markes International, Inc.

Markes International, Inc., a foreign-owned small business based in Gold River, California, supplies advanced analytical laboratory instrumentation—principally thermal desorption systems, gas chromatography equipment, and associated autosamplers—to civilian federal agencies as a prime contractor (97% of recent awards), with specialized service and maintenance agreements rounding out its portfolio. The vendor operates predominantly in full-and-open competition, though it has received several total small business set-aside awards across its prime footprint.

Markes International's capability portfolio centers on thermal desorption and gas chromatography platforms, which it sells either as equipment procurement or as multi-year maintenance and repair service agreements. Representative prime work includes a $194,366 firm fixed-price purchase order from the Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (awarded July 2026) for a Centri 180 automated sampler and sample preparation platform; a $384,208 order from the Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Integrated Service Network 21 (September 2025) for a Centri 180 Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer system; a $372,853 EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management procurement (March 2023) for laboratory and field equipment supporting the agency's hazardous waste remediation work; and a multi-year, $109,213 EPA Office of Research and Development maintenance contract (base plus two option years through May 2026) for repair and maintenance of Markes thermal desorber and GC-TOF systems. In December 2025, the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate awarded a $46,049 sole-source purchase order for a Markes Micro-Chamber/Thermal Extractor system to support the FBI's Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center's improvised explosives detection work.

Customer concentration is narrow and civilian-agency focused. The Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development leads on both award count (15 awards, $657 thousand combined potential value) and dollar volume, followed by the EPA's Office of Land and Emergency Management (3 awards, $530 thousand), the Department of Veterans Affairs (1 award, $384 thousand), the CDC Pittsburgh office (10 awards, $308 thousand), and the Department of Agriculture's Plains Area (9 awards, $56 thousand). These five customer clusters account for 73% of recent awards and 65% of combined potential value. Markes International has served 19 distinct federal agencies across its footprint, with deep penetration into EPA research and environmental response operations and sustained multi-year presence at CDC, VA, and DOJ.

Activity has contracted sharply in recent years—eleven awards in 2023 declined to five in 2024 and seven in 2025, with only one award recorded through mid-2026—suggesting either a seasonal or portfolio-maturation effect given the recurring multi-year maintenance contracts that carry extended completion dates into 2027 and 2030. Only two awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, with combined potential value of $273 thousand, indicating minimal recompete exposure in the near term. Markes International maintains nominal subcontracting presence: two sub-awards on record as of the data snapshot, one to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (August 2025) for operational medicine research and development materials and one to Prism Maritime (May 2024) for CBRN defense materials supply—neither of which alters the prime-centric characterization.

NAICS concentration reflects the instrumentation focus: 43 awards cluster under Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing (334516), with another 13 awards under repair and maintenance categories (334515, 811212). Place of performance is Gold River, California for most equipment manufacturing; delivery to customer sites (EPA Research Triangle Park, CDC Pittsburgh, ERDC Vicksburg, VA network locations) for fulfilled orders. The vendor has maintained active federal contracting status since 2013 and carries approximately $3.3 million in combined potential value across the visible prime and sub portfolio, with $3.2 million obligated (98% of ceiling value), indicating disciplined execution against existing commitments.

Markes International is a specialist manufacturer of instrumentation for detection of trace-level volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds. Markes has a well-deserved reputation for its application expertise in the field of thermal desorption.