Geospatial innovator gets leg up from MonTEC: Founder used UM research to win contracts for security system at Navy base
By LORI GRANNIS
of the Missoulian
Dick King has been chief of the Montana Technology Enterprise Center since its beginning as a technology incubator in 2000 a collaborative effort between the University of Montana and the Missoula Area Economic Development Foundation.
Within the past seven years, many Montana-based technology start-ups have taken advantage of the resources MonTEC provides, such as affordable office space and utilities, meeting spaces and state-of-the-art telecommunications systems.
GCS Research came to MonTEC two and a half years ago looking for just those resources.
GCS founder Alex Philp had been researching geospatial information systems through the University of Montana for many years and wanted to start a business using GIS technology.
GIS technology, which has been around for nearly 40 years, is a combination of software and data that becomes a spatial method by which to look at things from multiple perspectives.
Over the years, GIS has found applications from medicine to military to forestry.
But Philp quickly gained momentum discovering local applications for GIS technology.
"One of biggest projects GCS had been involved in up until recently," said King, "was formulating Flathead County's fire plan."
But Philp found a way to take GIS technology much further than the Flathead Valley.
In a new spinoff company called TerraEchos Inc. which combines GIS with technology garnered from the United States Navy's Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I. Philp has created a technological innovation like no other.
TerraEchos has successfully commercialized research via the creation of an innovative perimeter security system for threat and security applications that combines long-used U.S. defense technology with GIS applications.
Applications include anything, Philp said, with a critical infrastructure that demands protecting from borders to transformers to pipeline substations to nuclear power plants, he said.
King knows that what a technology incubator provides entrepreneurs beyond resources is the chance to successfully commercialize research.
"Alex did that," said King. "That's when intellectual property becomes highly valuable."
It's also when investors begin to flock to innovations.
Often, the value of that intellectual property is just what a company needs to leverage funding for manufacture and bringing a product to market, King confirmed.
"Small companies often hang on by their fingernails," King added. That makes having the ability to keep operating costs low while a startup searches for capital a key to success, he said.
But TerraEchos isn't just a small win for a local start-up within a technology incubator like MonTEC.
According to Philp, TerraEchos was able to do what a lot of people couldn't capture government technology, plug it into other technology via GIS research and methods, and most unusually, gain coveted licensing from a branch of the government known for eschewing the small guy for the big fish.
"Gaining the license was no small feat, I can tell you," Philp explained, saying that big defense contractors puzzled over how the company won government confidence and secured the technology for market.
That technology is what the U.S. Navy once called "Blue Rose" (Battlescape Land Undersea Extensible Rayleigh Optical Scattering and Electronics) a sophisticated sensor system that allows movement tracking of objects in a covert manner.
"Once it was declassified, we began calling it ADELOS, which means Œhidden' in Greek," said Philp, who explained that the perimeter technology comes in the form of a fiber-optic cable that is buried in things like sidewalks and walls and can secretly track all manner of movement and activity.
What Philp and TerraEchos brought to the table plugging threat information and technology into a geospatial context has enabled the company to link communication to security information for the purpose of mapping precision.
"When you detect a threat with the sensor, GIS adds value in determining where along the fiber optic line that threat or activity is occurring," said Philp.
Anything perceived as being a critical piece of infrastructure, he said, needs a way to detect threat and maintain security.
When it came time for Philp to take the combined ADELOS technology to market, TerraEchos looked at a variety of big defense contractors across the country.
"We looked at the big guys, and bottom line, we wanted to work with someone locally and regionally," Philp said. "There is better value here and staying local meant we could become more involved in the process," he said.
His association with technology and economic development organization Tech Link in Bozeman led him to introductions at tribally owned enterprise S&K Electronics in Pablo.
Philp eventually formed the manufacturing partnership with S&K Electronics to produce ADELOS for market.
Next up, said Philp, is a period of commercial testing in a partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory one of the U.S. Department of Energy's multiprogram national laboratories responsible for developing compelling national security technologies.
"This technology could provide a ton of solutions to a litany of customers," said Philp. "Idaho National Lab will help us evaluate the applicability in high-value target areas."