Fire Protection Sales Representative

Position	Fire Protection Sales Representative
Company	Columbia Fire, LLC
Location	Seattle, Washington — in person, based at our Seattle office. This position is not remote or hybrid.
Reports To	Contract Division Manager
Employment Type	Full-time, salaried, exempt
Experience Level	Experienced. This is not an entry-level or trainee position. Fire protection experience is required.
Bargaining Unit	Non-union position. Columbia Fire is a Local 699 union sprinkler contractor and our fire sprinkler field positions are in the bargaining unit. This position is not.
Incentive Eligibility	Eligible for the Columbia Fire Standard Sales Incentive Plan (commission). See Compensation.
Travel	Daily local travel throughout greater Seattle and the Puget Sound region. Occasional overnight travel as Columbia Fire bids work in markets outside Seattle.

Columbia Fire, LLC is a Seattle-based fire protection contractor founded in 2005. We design, install, inspect, test, service, and repair fire sprinkler and fire alarm systems for general contractors, developers, building owners, and property managers across the Puget Sound region. We are a Local 699 union sprinkler contractor.

Columbia Fire is part of Columbia Safety Services, LLC, a multi-state regional fire and life safety company. Our operating companies and offices:

• Columbia Fire, LLC — Seattle, WA
• Valley Fire Control, LLC — Albany and Newport, OR, and Spokane, WA, with an office in St Maries, ID
• FFF Protection — Greater Boise, with an office in Nampa, ID

We are building something long-term and formidable: a fire and life safety platform that operates well, invests in its people, and keeps its word. Our core values guide how we operate: Customer First, Grit, Effective Communication, Own the Outcome, Take Pride in the Work, and Do the Right Thing.

Today, bid coverage in Seattle is set by capacity rather than by choice. Takeoff and estimating sit with a small group and with operations leaders who already carry full workloads, so the bids that get answered are the ones that fit in the gaps. Work we should win gets no-bid, gets priced late, or gets priced by someone who never walked the building. General contractors and owners we want a real relationship with get a number from us instead of a person.

This seat exists to own the front end of the fire sprinkler business in Seattle: find the work, walk it, take it off, price it, sell it, and hand a clean and accurate scope to the project team. It is a sales seat — but a sales seat for someone who can do the technical work behind the number.

Columbia Fire has been in the Seattle market since 2005 with a union field force and a reputation we intend to keep. You will sell new construction and tenant improvement sprinkler work, design/build and plan-and-spec, plus the service, inspection, deficiency repair, and retrofit work that comes with an installed base. Inspection and service are where the group is investing, and there is real room to grow recurring revenue inside accounts you already know.

As the Columbia Fire brand grows into markets outside Seattle, this seat will have the opportunity to bid and sell work in those markets. That is upside on top of the Seattle territory, not a relocation.

Sell and develop work

• Own a named account base of general contractors, developers, building owners, and property managers, and grow it. You are expected to add accounts, not just service the ones handed to you.
• Prospect actively: outbound calls and visits, plan room and invitation-to-bid tracking, jobsite relationships, industry associations, and referrals from our service and inspection technicians.
• Attend pre-bid site walks on your pursuits. All of them. If the walk is at 6:30 a.m. in Sodo, you are there.
• Meet customers in person, including business development meals and jobsite visits, and represent Columbia Fire at industry and association events.
• Keep your pipeline current in HubSpot so the forecast is real — what is out, what is closing, what we lost, and why.
• Bring back market intelligence: what pricing is doing, who is buying, where we are losing, and what our competitors are doing well.

Take off, price, and propose

• Perform complete quantity takeoffs on water-based fire protection drawings — new construction, tenant improvement, retrofit, and deficiency correction.
• Read architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical drawings and specifications, and identify what is missing, conflicting, or mispriced before it becomes our problem.
• Build the estimate: material, fabrication, field labor hours at union rates, subcontract, equipment, freight, permits, and indirect cost.
• Price to a target gross margin and defend it. You own the margin on what you sell, not just the volume.
• Write proposals with an unambiguous scope, including inclusions, exclusions, clarifications, and assumptions.
• Review contract terms with leadership before anything is signed, and flag commercial risk — liquidated damages, retention, unusual insurance or indemnity language, schedule exposure, and scope gaps.

Hand off and follow through

• Turn sold work over to project management and design with a documented scope, estimate basis, and assumptions. A clean handoff is part of the sale.
• Stay engaged through submittal and buyout. You are not the project manager after award, but you own what you sold and you answer for it.
• Price, negotiate, and close change orders on your projects.
• Step in on collections when the customer relationship is the fastest path to getting paid.
• Stay in front of your customers after the job closes. Recurring inspection and service work is the point.

Represent the company

• Follow and enforce site safety expectations on every walk and every visit, including PPE and site-specific requirements. Zero injuries is a stated company target and it applies to you personally.
• Do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it. If a job goes wrong, you make the call yourself.

• You can take off a set of drawings and build a defensible number without help.
• You are comfortable in a union shop and you understand what union field labor rates do to a bid.
• You have margin discipline. You would rather no-bid than buy work at a number that hurts the field.
• You pick up the phone when a job goes sideways — early, with a plan, before the customer finds out from someone else.
• You are organized enough to run your own funnel, your own bid calendar, and your own follow-up without being chased.
• You are credible with a superintendent in the field and with an owner in a conference room, and you do not change who you are between the two.
• You are direct. You say what the real problem is, and you say it to the person who can fix it.

We would rather be honest now than three months in.

• If you have never taken off a set of drawings and priced fire protection work, please do not apply for this seat. This is not a relationship-only sales job. You will be pricing risk in your first weeks. We do hire inspection and service sales people from outside the industry — the code side is teachable in those roles — so if that is you, look at our other openings instead.
• If you need to inherit a finished process, this will not work. The corporate layer here is deliberately lean and is being built now. The systems exist — Acumatica, HubSpot, ServiceTrade, ACC Build — but formal task-level training and polished playbooks do not, in every case, exist yet. If you have spent your career inside a large company where onboarding is a program and every process is documented, you will find this uncomfortable. Some people find that freeing. Know which one you are.
• If your instinct when a job goes wrong is to go quiet rather than pick up the phone, you will fail in this role.
• If you sell on price because it is easier, this plan will not pay you. Commission here is driven by gross margin, not revenue. Cheap volume earns very little and it makes you unpopular with the people who have to build it.
• If you want to work from home most of the week, this is not that seat. It is in person: jobsites, pre-bid walks, customer offices, and our Seattle office.

• High school diploma or GED.
• Three or more years in fire protection sales, estimating, or design, including direct responsibility for pricing water-based fire protection work.
• Demonstrated ability to complete a full quantity takeoff of a water-based fire protection system from a construction plan set, unassisted.
• Working knowledge of NFPA 13 (including NFPA 13R and 13D as applicable) sufficient to determine occupancy hazard classification, design density and area, and system type from drawings and specifications.
• Ability to read and coordinate architectural, structural, mechanical, and electrical drawings.
• Familiarity with NFPA 25 as it applies to selling inspection, testing, deficiency repair, and service work.
• Proficiency with estimating software and spreadsheets, and the ability to build, explain, and defend a bid.
• Valid driver’s license and a driving record that is insurable for operation of a company vehicle.
• Legally authorized to work in the United States.
• Able to perform the physical requirements of site walks on active construction sites (see Schedule & Work Environment).

• NICET Level II or higher in Water-Based Systems Layout, or a Washington State Patrol Certificate of Competency (Level III or higher if you also stamp design work).
• Hands-on layout and design experience in AutoCAD-based fire sprinkler software (AutoSPRINK, HydraCAD, SprinkCAD, or comparable), including hydraulic calculations.
• Established Seattle-market relationships with general contractors, developers, or property management groups.
• Experience estimating with union labor rates and working under project labor agreements.
• Experience with Acumatica, HubSpot, ServiceTrade, ACC Build, Bluebeam, or comparable construction and CRM systems.
• Standpipe, fire pump, or special hazards experience; familiarity with fire alarm scope on combined bids.
• Familiarity with Seattle and King County permitting and plan review.
• Post-secondary coursework or a degree in construction management, engineering, or a related field — or equivalent experience. No degree is required for this position.

• Base salary: $81,000 to $110,000 per year. Placement in the range depends on depth of takeoff and estimating capability, fire protection experience, design and layout credentials, and demonstrated sales results.
• Commission: this position participates in the Columbia Fire Standard Sales Incentive Plan. The plan is tiered on project gross margin and contract value, with incremental rates ranging from roughly 2% to 9% — higher margin earns a higher rate, and gross margin is capped at 70% for calculation purposes. Additional incentives apply to new inspection agreements and new monitoring accounts. Project incentives begin only after an annual earned-revenue threshold is exceeded, and negative-margin projects can result in deductions within the same calculation period. Incentives are paid three times per year, with a portion held back and trued up after year-end. Participation requires a signed plan agreement. Complete plan documents, thresholds, and calculation detail are provided during the hiring process.
• Commission and incentive earnings are performance-driven and are not guaranteed.
• Vehicle allowance of $400 per month plus a company fuel card.
• Laptop, phone, and reimbursement of approved customer development expenses under company policy.
• Paid training, certification, and continuing education, including NICET and state or city licensing where applicable.