James E. Toups 

James E. Toups

Class of '80

Mr. Toups is Founder, President, and CEO of Fire and Life Safety America, Inc. (FLSA). Mr. Toups has over two decades of experience in the life safety industry and 28 years in building service-related businesses. He has served as President and CEO of East Coast Fire Protection Inc. since its inception in 1997. In, 2008, after acquiring several companies with other brand names, the company moved to one combined brand name by changing to FLSA. Under his leadership, the company has grown from a startup in 1997 to $185 million in sales annually. This sales level places FLSA in the top five in the nation. FLSA is also whole-company International Standards Organization (ISO)- and Underwriters Laboratories (UL)-certified. Mr. Toups has received the Virginia Entrepreneur of the Year award for 2000 from Ernst & Young and the Small Business of the Year from the Richmond Chamber of Commerce in 2001.

Before starting FLSA, Mr. Toups was a shareholder and Vice President of Finance for VSC Corporation, the parent company of Virginia Sprinkler Company. Mr. Toups joined VSC in 1989 after the purchase of VSC by the Bradford Group. Mr. Toups helped VSC grow from $12 million in 1989 to $48 million in 1997. During that time, he worked with accounting, branch-level operations and strategy formulation/implementation. After Mr. Toups left in 1997, his job was split into a COO and a CFO position.

Before joining VSC, Mr. Toups was employed by Steel Services Inc. He joined SSI in 1980 as Assistant to the Controller, advancing to Controller and Vice President Finance. In these roles, he helped to integrate acquisitions and founded a startup subsidiary as SSI grew from $10 million in 1980 to $40 million at his departure in 1989.

Mr. Toups graduated from the McIntire School of Commerce of the University of Virginia with honors in 1980. He also graduated with an M.B.A. from the University of Richmond in 1987. Mr. Toups received honors for both being number one in his class and also having the best faculty-adjudicated master’s thesis of the graduating class. Mr. Toups is a Level III Fire Sprinkler Layout Technician and a Level I Alarm Technician with the National Institute of Certified Engineering Technicians (NICET), an industry certification group.

Mr. Toups has served in various capacities for the Virginia Chapter of the American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA) and has twice been a convention speaker to the National Convention of the AFSA on fire sprinkler service business issues. He has been published in the Fire Protection Contractor, an industry magazine.

Mr. Toups funded and was responsible for the fire protection retrofit of the Richmond, Va., Catholic Charities offices. He also has assisted Habitat for Humanity with fire protection in donated housing. He is a founder and is currently on the Board of the Central Virginia Lions Hearing Aid Foundation, a charity that places no-cost hearing aids for the indigent and elderly.

Mr. Toups is married, with two children, Blaine (19, attending American University) and Katherine (14). In his spare time, he enjoys golf, history, and boating.