Music City Fire Sprinkler LLC

With combined 120-plus years of experience in the fire sprinkler systems industry, Ken Brinkley, Carl Phillips, Jim Hicks and James Hill Sr. decided to partner with each other and founded Music City Fire Sprinkler LLC in 1999. Located in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Music City Fire designs and installs all fire lines and sprinklers as well as site utilities for fire sprinkler systems in the industrial, residential and commercial sectors.

Getting started

The Music City Fire team discovered that an advantage of having four founding owners was that each partner was skilled in different areas of business as well as the trade. “I was in sales and another owner was in design,” says Brinkley, principal and vice president of sales. “We also had one owner who was a licensed CPA and another who did installation. So we had all four owners involved in every aspect of the business.” James Hicks, who ran the design department of the company, has now retired while the remaining three owners remain active in the company.

Brinkley says that Music City Fire sets itself apart from the competition by the fact that being involved in all facets of the industry. “Most sprinkler companies will stick with one kind of job or one sector,” Brinkley explains. “We do all types of jobs. Whether it’s residential, commercial, industrial, manufacturing, distribution or hospitals, we’ll do it.” Music City Fire also offers site utility services, which is rare for a sprinkler company.

Headquartered in Tennessee, Music City Fire is licensed in 18 states and completes jobs throughout the Southeast. “When we do projects out of state, we are usually traveling with the general contractor that has hired us as a subcontractor,” says Brinkley. “We’ll often work with the owners as well.” Music City Fire has worked closely a number of high-profile companies, such as Sherwin-Williams. The team recently provided fire protection services to upgrade the paint company’s facilities.

Multiple talents

With 50 employees, Music City Fire performs all aspects of its services in-house except for welding and fabrication. “Regardless of what state we are in, it’s our guys doing the design and installation,” Brinkley explains. “We also do the all underground site work as well.” The company is well-equipped to perform these services as Music City Fire owns three backhoes, an excavator and a dump truck.

One of the largest projects that Music City Fire has completed was for Tractor Supply Co. in Franklin, Kentucky. Standing at 838,944 square feet, this distribution center was on a fast-track of completion with a schedule of seven months from start to finish. The project included and underground 10-inch fire line loop, 22 Early Suppression Fast Response (ESFR) roof systems, one diesel fire pump, 9,258 sprinklers, 2,009 sprinklers in flammable storage racks and 1,224 pick-module sprinklers.

Music City Fire has recently been awarded the HCA Capital View Project by HCA and Skanska, the construction manager for the project. The HCA Capital View Project is a large mixed-use project that will be built in the North Gulch area of downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The 16-story tower will include more than 500,000 square feet of office space, as well as seven levels of parking and future retail space.

Music City Fire will be providing all the fire sprinkler needs for the entire project, which will include 21 wet-pipe fire sprinkler systems, 29 dry-pipe fire sprinkler and standpipe systems, two fire pumps and one low-zone fire pump that will serve floors one through eight, and one high-zone fire pump that will serve floors nine through 16.

A bright future for the industry

Brinkley maintains cautious optimism in regards to the economic outlook in the country and specifically the construction industry. As a member of the National Fire Sprinkler Association, Brinkley says that regions across the country are expecting a surge in the industry. “We recently met in Atlanta and every region thinks things are going to go up at least gradually from last year,” says Brinkley. “Gradual is what we would prefer to see, we don’t need a big surge in growth right now.”

While Music City Fire expects to experience some growth in the near future, Brinkley expects to be adding to the staff as well. “We’re going to be looking to add some new salesmen to the company,” says Brinkley. The employees and partners of Music City Fire are what Brinkley says motivates him the most about his company. “We definitely try to create a family atmosphere here for our folks.”

As the company progresses, Music City Fire Sprinkler LLC will continue to raise the bar for the fire protection industry in the Southeast.