Marking a major milestone for the Boca Raton-based company that has become the largest full-service dealer and installer of automatic standby generators in the United States, Personalized Power Systems (PPS) has installed its 1,000th generator system at a South Florida residence. The installation was completed during the week of May 1 at a residence in Plantation, Fla.

After the barrage of hurricanes to hit South Florida in 2004 and 2005, PPS has played a significant role in changing the mindset of local home and business owners in terms of hurricane preparedness. With the help of advertising, media coverage and word-of-mouth referrals, the company has created a major trend in South Florida for standby generator systems that engage automatically within seconds of an outage and power an entire home or business through prolonged outages. It has also worked with most of the municipal building departments in South Florida to update their codes to allow for today's more advanced generator systems.

"Since 1998, we have worked with practically every municipality in the tri-county South Florida area, and our experience has enabled us to provide a higher level of service and know-how for our customers," said Hiram J. "HJ" Frank, the president and co-owner of PPS. "We are the largest and most experienced automatic standby generator dealer and installer in South Florida."

PPS recently donated a $25,000 automatic generator system to the Disaster Survival House, a Deerfield Beach-based center for hurricane and disaster mitigation that features a hurricane laboratory, examples of window protection and wind tunnel demonstrations. It is also planning the donation of a generator system for a Boca Raton gas station to help facilitate access to fuel in the area during prolonged power outages.

PPS sells, installs and maintains automatic standby generator systems that power entire homes and small businesses in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. The turn-key systems start at $17,000 including all of the necessary permitting and installation. They run on natural gas or propane from a 500-gallon underground tank and engage automatically within seconds of an outage. The generators are capable of operating continuously for weeks until the power is restored, providing complete peace of mind for home and business owners who want to avoid the disruptions of power outages.