Directed Energy Could Have Major Impact in NM New Mexico has the potential to become the Center of Excellence for all directed-energy technology developments in the United States.
Cindy Kaiser, chief engineer at AFRL's Directed Energy Directorate, has been studying the possibility as she earns her MBA at UNM.
"The potential impact is huge. No other state has the concentration of directed energy employees," she said during a NM Optics luncheon on June 26.
Of the DOD's annual science and technology budget, one third (more than $3 billion) is programmed for directed energy. New Mexico is already a world leader in directed energy (high-energy lasers, high-power microwaves and related technology) because of its technical expertise, its world-class facilities and the R&D achievements of its labs.
Directed energy "has the power to transform the military to meet the asymmetrical threats of the 21st century," she said. New weapons in development offer significant advantages in speed, trajectory, range, power, wavelength, beam, military use, target and lethality. Their precision can reduce collateral damage as well as the numbers of personnel needed. One weapon still in development produces variable effects from lethal to nonlethal.
"Technology wins wars. That's not necessarily the war we're fighting today because of the terrorists, but it was true in the past and could be again."
New Mexico already has major aerospace players, and their operations could grow as directed-energy work expands in the state. Boeing alone has 473 employees and 10 nonmanufacturing facilities; salaries total $37 million, and it does business with 92 suppliers and vendors.
Northrop Grumman, Lockheed and Boeing all want to increase their directed-energy presence in New Mexico. Because the big companies tend to outsource their technical work, it's an opportunities for small companies. She urges the state to encourage their expansion.
Cindy figures directed energy has a five-year window to make a name for itself, as directed-energy technology matures. "It is directed energy's time. New Mexico could become a center. We could increase the presence of industry and grow the technological workforce."
Mark Your Calendars for Mirror Tech Days August 25-27 is the eighth annual Mirror Tech Days conference, hosted by NM Optics and SPIE at the Albuquerque Hyatt Regency.
This will be the biggest conference yet, with 45 presenters describing the work they're doing for about a dozen federal agencies. For the third year in a row, NM Optics is managing sponsor, and, also for the third year, meeting attendees chose Albuquerque.
Last year's conference attracted more than 40 companies, 8 government optics program managers and 125-plus attendees for presentations on current federal optical programs, including optical systems, materials, coatings, optical testing, fabrication, micro optics, grazing incidence mirrors and membrane mirrors.
This conference is a must-do for anybody interested in doing business with the government and/or its suppliers. Want to exhibit and/or be a sponsor? Contact Ed Spivak at ed@nmoia.org or 505-280-5280. For information see .
Doing Business in China: Bring Patience In five years of doing business with China, Dick Meyer, president and CEO of CIC Photonics, has learned that negotiating doesn't end when the agreement is signed. He's learned the painful details of transporting delicate equipment over 900 miles of bad roads. And he's enjoyed some memorable food.
Dick spoke during an NM Optics Executive Roundtable June 12.
He got his first experience with China in the 1980s as head of Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center. In 1994 he helped found CIC Photonics, a scientific instrument company selling primarily to the industrial sector.
In 2003 three competing Chinese entities found the Albuquerque firm's Web site as they searched for a single-combustion gas analyzer." CIC Photonics produced a refrigerated gas analyzer for use in the Gobi Desert; it had to withstand dust and heat while extracting air samples in the personnel compartment of a military tank as cannons fired.
Another instrument analyzed burning gases for the Sichuan Fire Research Institute. A third project was a combustion analyzer for the Chinese Academy of Gas Turbines.
"Doing business with China, you better be patient," he said. "A typical project can take 2 to 3 years. Communications are slow. They have email, but email can take one to three weeks. Things still depend on meetings between the sales agent and the end user, and that requires frequent travel over long distances. And the paperwork! It never ends.
"There are a lot of negotiation stages, and if anybody can think of additional stages, the Chinese can. They're still asking for more even after you have an agreement. There's lots of give and take, and the Chinese expect you to give."
As a small company, CIC Photonics can't afford salaried sales representatives, so it works through contract sales agents who operate more like distributors. The agents are also responsible for translating instruction manuals and providing training.
Transportation involves multiple carriers and "multiple opportunities for damage," Dick said.
Sometimes the problems are on our side of the pond. Donald Rumsfeld once held up a project for months because of concerns about shipping technology to the Chinese. An appeal would cost $35,000, so Dick sought help from Sen. Jeff Bingaman, who arranged a meeting with the Export Administration and DOD. Dick wrote his own appeal, and the transaction was allowed.
Any IP issues? "Most of the instruments we've sold have been on the market for a number of years, and they're sold around the world. The only significant concern we have is with software -- we wrote our own - but it would take a tremendous amount of reverse engineering to decipher it."
On the up side, he said: "Chinese engineers are well trained and very smart. We don't have anything over on them. Their sales representatives pick things up quickly. They're quick to grasp new technologies, and they're entrepreneurial."
And did he mention the food? "You'll eat well, and you don't gain weight."
NMOIA Receives SPIE Funding NM Optics received a $2,600 SPIE education and outreach grant to help buy and distribute Hands-On-Optics experiment kits to New Mexico science teachers. SPIE Board Director David Wick, of Sandia, presented the check to NM Optics Chairman Jim McNally at the June 26 meeting.
LANL Announces Tech Transfer Initiative Los Alamos National Laboratory has asked for proposals from parties interested in partnering with the lab and Los Alamos National Security to identify promising lab technology and then create and grow spin-off companies. LANS/LANL will provide up to $1 million over three years for the effort, which begins in October.
Despite the availability of venture funding, the rate of LANL spinouts hasn't reached its potential. The chosen partner would implement a pilot program, the Los Alamos Venture Acceleration (LAVA) Initiative, to spin out start-up companies from the lab. The emphasis will be to establish new businesses in northern New Mexico. LAVA will provide business guidance, market validation, maturation funding, and assemble the external technical and management team needed to bring promising technologies to the equity-financing stage and secure pre-seed and seed financing.
For more information, contact Belinda Padilla in the Technology Transfer Division at bee@lanl.gov or 505-667-9896.
Education Matters NM MESA and the Hispanic College Fund will host the first annual Hispanic Youth Symposium July 9 to 12 at UNM. About 100 students will participate. Only eight other communities have the program, which brings underserved Hispanic students to a college camps for a three-night, four-day program to change the way they think about education and professional goals.
NM Optics is a sponsor of the event and also donated $1,000 to fund a scholarship that will be awarded during the symposium. Shown here are Ed Spivak, for NM Optics; Ted Sahd, chairman of the NM MESA board; and Toney Begay, NM MESA executive director.
"Our big strategic thrust this year is education and workforce development," said NM Optics Chairman Jim McNally. "We want to use optics to interest young minds in science."
New Mexico fared poorly on the 2008 STEM Education Report Card. Eighth graders ranked 48th in average math scores and 49th in the percentage, 17%, at or above proficiency. New Mexico's average ACT science scores were 43rd and match scores, 46th. In other ACT indicators, 32% of high school graduates are ready for college algebra; 22 percent are ready for biology, for ranks of 45th and 43rd.
The report card contains 40 benchmarks related to K-12 science and math teaching, socio-economic and diversity data, comparative rankings, and assessments of each state's progress.
See the full report, as well as information about how the presidential candidates stand on science and technology, at .
Science/Optics News In June the House approved about $400 million in "emergency" science spending, following long negotiations. Several key science agencies, including the DOE Office of Science, the NSF, NASA and the National Institutes of Health will receive funding to prevent shutdown of ongoing program, staff layoffs and other consequences of the budget impasse in December. Increased funding for these agencies may help their numbers in FY '09 appropriations bills.
For more information see .
Member News Congratulations to NM Optics member companies among The Flying 40: Applied Research Associates, first in revenue and 10th in growth of revenues over $10 million; Applied Technology Associates, 5th in growth of revenues over $10 million. Companies honored for growth of revenues under $10 million were Lumidigm, 7th; AMO WaveFront Sciences, 14th; CIC Photonics, 18th; and Optomec, 19th.
TruTouch Technologies was recognized by New Mexico Business Weekly as the number one small company for the Fast Trackers Award.
Ed Spivak, NM Optics treasurer, was a presenter during the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Southwestern and Rocky Mountain (SWARM) Division, meeting in Albuquerque. Ed was on a panel discussing education collaboration that included representatives of the WIRED program, community colleges, the New Mexico Alliance for Optics & Photonics Education, and the Maddox Foundation.
Bill Goodman will be profiled in an upcoming issue of SPIE Professional, in the publication's "Career Steps" series. Watch for it at .
ZTEC Instruments, a Verge Fund portfolio company, in June introduced its ZT4210 LAN oscilloscopes. These small, rack-mountable, high-channel density oscilloscopes provide features normally found only on much larger bench-top instruments. Users can easily obtain high-channel density and interface with instruments across the lab or around the world. See .
Moog Inc., which develops electronic control systems for spacecraft, is the latest tenant at Sandia Science and Technology Park. Moog, currently housed at CSA Engineering, will move into 7,160 square feet at the Sandia Synergy Center. Moog acquired CSA last month.
Larry Dosser, president and CEO of Mound Laser & Photonics Center in Ohio, has been elected to the Dayton Area Defense Contractors Association board.
The Rodey Law Firm is listed in Chambers USA-America's Leading Lawyers for Business 2008. Rodey ranked first in New Mexico in real estate, litigation (general, commercial), and labor and employment; second in corporate-commercial and environment, natural resources, and regulated industries.
In June Boulder Imaging exhibited at The Vision Show in Boston.
Optics Events AFRL, the 377 CONS, and the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce will hold the fifth annual Small Business Conference, Marketplace and Trade Fair Expo, "Building Partnerships for the 21st Century," on July 17-18 at the Albuquerque Convention Center.
More than a dozen military and federal agencies will describe what they buy and what acquisitions they're planning. During a Marketplace on the 17th you can meet with the agencies one on one. Concurrent with the Marketplace will be 10 workshops. On the 18th a 100-table trade fair will open.
Last year more than 450 people attended.
For information, see or call Melissa at 505-842-9003.
Career Opportunities Miox Corp. is looking for an electrical engineer with a degree (preferably master's) in electronic-electrical engineering and at least 5 to 8 years of relevant work experience.
Primary job duties will include microcontroller programming and documentation, PLC programming and troubleshooting (Allen Bradley experience preferred), implementing CE and UL certifications across a product line, designing control systems, wiring and block diagrams using AutoCAD and AutoCAD Electrical, designing PC board layouts (Mentor Pads experience preferred).
For more information, see .
Send your news to The Lens editor, Sherry Robinson at robinson@nmia.com.
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New Mexico Optics Industry Association (TM) 851 University Blvd SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 USA info@nmoia.org
Cindy Kaiser, chief engineer at AFRL's Directed Energy Directorate, has been studying the possibility as she earns her MBA at UNM.
In five years of doing business with China, Dick Meyer, president and CEO of CIC Photonics, has learned that negotiating doesn't end when the agreement is signed. He's learned the painful details of transporting delicate equipment over 900 miles of bad roads. And he's enjoyed some memorable food.
NMOIA Receives 
Los Alamos National Laboratory has asked for proposals from parties interested in partnering with the lab and Los Alamos National Security to identify promising lab technology and then create and grow spin-off companies. LANS/LANL will provide up to $1 million over three years for the effort, which begins in October.
NM Optics is a sponsor of the event and also donated $1,000 to fund a scholarship that will be awarded during the symposium. Shown here are Ed Spivak, for NM Optics; Ted Sahd, chairman of the NM MESA board; and Toney Begay, NM MESA executive director.