THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 3, 1995 TAG: 9504020348
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, BUSINESS WEEKLY
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Long : 241 lines
Joseph Heyman should not be smiling. The government agency for which Heyman works, NASA Langley Research Center, is threatened by cutbacks, layoffs, maybe cancellations of entire programs. So Heyman should be in a snit, or at least in a bad mood.
But he happily points to product information splayed on a table in his office. Heyman, Langley's deputy director of technology applications, sounds almost evangelical extolling the commercial prospects for some of the high-tech materials and devices developed in the aerospace center's sprawling complex of laboratories and wind tunnels. The Peninsula, he insists, is where companies need to be if they want to benefit from a future boom in products and services born of scientific research.
``I think Tidewater Virginia, for small high-tech companies, is a gold mine,'' Heyman said. ``We have an educated work force. We have a very desirable living envi ronment. And we have the technology. We are indeed open for business.''
On Wednesday, Heyman will be one of those throwing open the doors on tech transfer.
Langley will act as the headquarters for a high-tech trade show called Expotech '95, an exposition expected to draw about 2,000 visitors to sites in Hampton and Newport News.
Sheltered no more by the breakwater of federal contracts, the Peninsula is being buffeted by the same economic tides sweeping through the rest of Hampton Roads.
NASA Langley, the nucleus around which many of the Peninsula's smaller high-tech firms have condensed, stands to lose millions in government dollars.
And, with the end of the Cold War, others have seen defense funding reduced. Expotech, say organizers, is one way to recapture the economic initiative by encouraging investment in local high-tech products and services.
``Expotech is a big first step to draw attention to the technology on the Peninsula and showcase it to the country,'' said Stephen S. Cooper, director of the Peninsula Advanced Technology Center, one of the event's primary sponsors.
``Depending on how you cut it, we're talking a couple of hundred firms here that have at their core some form or the other of technology,'' Cooper said. ``The Peninsula is leading the world in technology development and we want the world to know about it.''
One of the Expotech display sites will be the the $550 million CEBAF laboratory complex in Newport News, where research into the basic structure of matter has begun.
Although the facility, owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and managed by a university consortium, is weeks away from complete operation, physicists from around the nation and the world are already conducting limited experiments.
CEBAF will showcase several potential spin offs during Expotech, including a type of laser that could be used in manufacturing, optical light guides for instantaneous curing of adhesives and imaging devices that could dramatically boost the quality of medical diagnostic equipment.
``This is technology that we had to develop to make this a world-class device,'' said H. Frederick Dylla, CEBAF technology transfer manager. ``We hope to show to visitors that despite the fact we're a basic research laboratory, there are real applications that can be taken out of here.''
Taken together, CEBAF and Langley would seem the logical anchors for a concentration of high-tech firms. But transfer of technology from lab to marketplace, and the business growth that would accompany it, has lagged on the Peninsula.
Nor, with the possible exception of copier-maker Canon, has any single, large, high-tech employer set up shop in either Hampton or Newport News.
``We have just now as a community begun to organize ourselves,'' Cooper explained. ``CEBAF is just now coming on line. Langley Research Center has only within the last year reorganized itself to work more directly with commercial customers. A lot of the resources have been around, but we're just now building strategically on that base.''
Tech transfer has been the bread and butter for former NASA Langley researcher Douglas Juanarena, who in 1977 spun off expertise in pressure measurement sensors into a company, Pressure Systems Inc.
By 1991, Juanarena's firm had bloomed from a few staffers to more than 100 employees.
Then came the end of the Cold War and a nose dive in defense-related aerospace business. Juanarena was forced to lay off 10 PSI workers and lost several others to attrition.
``We got spoiled. We had 13 years of growth and then got a very rude wake-up call,'' Juanarena said. ``It was very discouraging but I never went home and said, `We're going to lose the company.' ''
While the leaner, 85-person PSI still supplies pressure measure ment systems and devices to the government and other aerospace customers, the company has diversified into wider commercial markets. Juanarena said PSI, which has revenues in the $9 million range, has branched off into the design and manufacture of industrial testing devices, environmental sensors and transducers for brake systems on earth-moving equipment.
Juanarena thinks that broad-based community efforts such as Expotech are bound to help would-be high-tech entrepreneurs. Of particular value could be Expotech seminars offering practical information on venture capital, patents and state and federal regulations.
``The mortality rate is fairly high for launching startups,'' Juanarena said. ``If we want to have more spin offs in the community - and I mean community in the broadest sense - the community must nurture these spin offs along.
``My prediction is that in the next two to three years, you'll see a dramatic increase in the numbers of federal lab-based spin offs in Hampton Roads. You'll have the push from the federal labs and the pull from the community.''
That would suit Langley's Heyman just fine. His Hampton center is pushing its own commercial products, including a new kind of plastic, an extremely small but efficient air filter, and a new class of digital imaging systems.
``Tech transfer is effectively getting a lot of value out of a small initial effort,'' Heyman contended. ``There's a unique opportunity for businesses outside our gate.''
If there once was a free ride for Peninsula high-tech, there is no more. The area will have to jump product-first into a fiercely competitive world where today's brainstorm can explode into tomorrow's barn burner. At stake, the observers agree, are hundreds of livelihoods.
``There are real challenges in front of us with situations such as NASA and future layoffs at the shipyards,'' said Julius A. ``Bud'' Denton, president of the Virginia Peninsula Economic Development Council. ``We hope with all these efforts that we can maintain jobs and payrolls on the Peninsula.'' MEMO: NASA Langley Research Center
Langley Blvd.
Hampton
Employs: 5,215
Budget: $700 million
Director: Paul F. Holloway
What it is: Langley Research Center, founded in 1917, conducts basic
and applied aerospace research. The complex includes more than 40 wind
tunnels.
What it does: Research programs include satellites, satellite-based
lasers and space-based remote sensors; advanced space transportation and
launch systems; advanced materials development; the proposed space
station and space shuttle missions; the Earth's ozone layer, and
atmospheric patterns that influence weather.
Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility
12000 Jefferson Ave.
Newport News
Employs: 500
Budget: $71 million
Director: Hermann Grunder
What it is: CEBAF is managed by the Southeastern Universities
Research Association, a consortium of 41 universities under contract to
the U.S. Department of Energy.
What it does: CEBAF has been described as one of the world's most
powerful microscopes for the study of nuclear matter. The first
experiment began last July. More than 1,000 scientists are expected to
conduct experiments at the lab.
EXPOTECH '95 SCHEDULE:
Visitors can attend seminars at the Holiday Inn - Hampton, see
technology exhibits at NASA Langley in Hampton as well as the nuclear
physics lab known as the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility
(CEBAF) in Newport News.
Wednesday
Events are in the Holiday Inn-Hampton hotel and conference center
unless otherwise noted.
9 a.m.
Strategic partnerships for technology firms: Pat Berberich, Ernst &
Young emerging capital group.
10:15 a.m.
What's new in wireless technologies: Warren Stutzman, director of
antennas and satellite communuciations group at Virginia Tech; Willard
Farley, assistant director, Center for Wireless Technology. Repeats at
11:15 a.m. Thursday.
CEBAF technology preview: Frederick Dylla, CEBAF technology transfer
manager; Stan Majewski, CEBAF detector chief scientist; Mike Kelly,
DuPont materials scientist.
11:15 a.m.
Innovative top-down design approaches for electronic systems: Jim
Aylor, University of Virginia Center for Semicustom Integrated Systems;
Bob Ross, University of Virginia research scientist. Repeats at 9 a.m.
Thursday
NASA technology preview: Charles P. Blankenship, NASA technologies
applications group.
1 p.m.
Exhibits open at CEBAF in Newport News.
Why you should plant your business on the Virginia Peninsula: Julius
A. Denton III, Virginia Peninsula Economic Development Council; Dick
Querin, Lucas Aerospace.
3 p.m.
Accessing capital for the high-tech firm: Bill Holloran, Hampton
Roads Small Business Development Center; Grant Dove, Technology
Strategies & Alliances; Alan Lindauer, Eastern Virginia Small Business
Investment Corp.; Pat Donnelly, Vedcorp capital fund; Bill Weirich,
Matrix Capital.
Thursday
9 a.m.
Technology Opportunity Showcase exhibit opens at NASA Langley,
Hampton.
Product development and commercialization opportunities in fiber
optics: Richard Claus, Virginia Tech fiber and electro-optics research
center; Kent Murphy, Virginia Tech electrical engineer. Repeats at 11:15
a.m.
10 a.m.
Forming partnerships with NASA: seminar at NASA Langley, Hampton.
Repeats at 2 p.m. and same times Friday
10:15 a.m.
The new CIT: Robert Templin, Virginia Center for Innovative
Technology.
1 p.m.
Raising capital from banks, government loan programs, and non-bank
options: Y.C. Kent, Small Business Administration; Don Price, AT&T
Capital; Jeff Richardson, Beach Financial.
3 p.m.
Accessing technologies to create customer value and corporate
profits: Peter Van Bergen, patents and copyrights specialist; Frank
Farmer, NASA Langley Research Center; Thomas A. Grant, Mezzullo &
McCandlish law firm; Marcia L. Rorke, Mohawk Research Corp.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Christopher Reddick, Staff
Photo illustration on cover
Joseph Heyman, deputy director of technology applications at NASA
Langley Research Center, stands inside the center's 16-foot wind
tunnel, holding a "crack finder' and a catalyst disc. The fan
behind him uses Sitka spruce wood blaces to propel the wind.
H. Frederick Dylla, technology transfer manager at CEBAF, sits next
to a cryostat assembly or "Thermos Bottle," which keeps
superconducting cavities chilled to -497 degrees Fahrenheit.
John Mammosser, staff engineer and head of cavity assembly at CEBAF,
works on a superconducting acceleration cavity inside a dust-free
room.
The catalyst disc, used to convert carbon monoxide to carbon
dioxide, as among the 120 exhibits of Langley technology available
for licensing and commercialization.
Heyman holds a "crack finder," an instrument used to detect hidden
cracks in metal. Heyman has high hopes for the high-tech device in
commercial applications.
KEYWORDS: TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER FEDERAL CONTRACT by CNB