THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: Friday, March 31, 1995 TAG: 9503310556 SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Advocates claim they are little devices with big futures. One, a cellular-phone-size detector, ferrets out the hairline cracks inside an airplane wing. Another, a charcoal-black air filter shaped like a hockey puck, will be scaled down and incorporated into firefighters' gas masks and home carbon monoxide detectors.
A third, a transparent ``light pipe'' the size of a short length of garden hose, could replace all but one light bulb inside cars.
On Thursday, these and other high-tech, high-value spinoffs were introduced at a news conference by organizers of Expotech, a three-day trade show coming to the Peninsula next week.
``The Peninsula is a good place to locate technology-based businesses,'' said Stephen S. Cooper, executive director of the Peninsula Advanced Technology Center, the chief Expotech sponsor. ``We have a significant amount of core technology being produced (here), growing up and producing business.''
Co-organized and underwritten by NASA Langley Research Center, the Newport News nuclear physics lab known as the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, local governments and area firms, Expotech is expected to draw up to 2,000 businesspeople and scientists.
Sponsors previewed what they said are but a handful of the home-grown technology advances that will be on display during the high-tech exposition.
``The whole focus of this is economic development,'' said one speaker, Joseph Heyman, Langley's deputy director of technology applications. ``We feel the national laboratories hold the key.''
Heyman said that, at Langley, attendees will be able to see the air filter, the crack detector and nearly 140 other devices or processes derived from the center's aerospace research. Several spinoffs have been licensed to companies by Langley for manufacture and sale; others are in the process of commercialization.
So, too, is the light pipe, the result of the specialized engineering required to build CEBAF's underground electron ``racetrack,'' the heart of that facility's nuclear physics research.
``People think of CEBAF as a sign on Interstate 64,'' said H. Frederick Dylla, CEBAF technology transfer manager. ``We're not well-known. But there are well over 1,000 scientists who will use this $600 million facility.''
Dylla contended that companies already have begun to benefit from CEBAF's engineering expertise. Several firms - including Dupont, IBM, AT&T, 3M and Xerox - are interested, Dylla said, in a new type of CEBAF-developed laser that could dramatically reduce manufacturing costs.
In particular, Dylla said that this laser could vastly simplify the preparation of nylon fibers for use in carpet and clothing. Instead of liquid chemicals, laser light would be used to change the surface properties of the nylon, improving its absorption of dye, wearability and resistance to staining.
Although Expotech will showcase the Peninsula's technological diversity, the speakers agreed the region will have to pool human and financial resources to overcome nagging economic and institutional uncertainty.
``This is a unique time in the history of Hampton Roads,'' Langley's Heyman said. ``We're seeing a downsizing at NASA and in the military . . . That could be a tremendous opportunity for growth.
``The reality is the area doesn't yet have an identity associated with high technology. We have to learn how to work together.'' MEMO: Expotech '95 takes place Wednesday through Saturday at three
Peninsula locations. Admission is free, but attendees must register.
Exhibits open daily by 9:00 a.m.
The locations are: Holiday Inn Hampton Coliseum; NASA Langley
Research Center in Hampton; Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator
Facility in Newport News. Shuttle bus service between sites will be
provided.
For more information, call Donna Carsey at 825-3578. by CNB