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NEWS Yet another article featuring HISC, ports security, and domestic play towards this wide market.

http://citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006603130302

COVER STORY: Guarding our ports
by Dale Neal, STAFF WRITER
published March 13, 2006 6:00 am
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WNC businesses getting into harbor security market
ASHEVILLE The mountains of Western North Carolina may be hundreds of miles away from the ocean, but Asheville may be miles ahead in the growing industry to guard seaports from terrorist attack.

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Rick Lampe of Mariner Container Corp. talks about the need for new shipping containers. (1,295 KB)
Eric Dobson with Navigational Services shares his concerns regarding the recent controversy over a Dubai-based company seeking to manage several U. S. ports. (1,119 KB)
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Eric Dobson of Navigational Sciences Inc. wants to base his company's information network in Asheville, away from the possibilities of hurricanes on the coast or a potential terrorist attack in a high-profile city. Using the region's lightning-fast broadband, NavSci would be able keep a virtual eye on shipping containers in the port of Charleston, S.C., 250 miles away, or even out on the world's oceans thousands of miles away.

In Granite Falls in the rural foothills of North Carolina, Rick Lampe is launching his fourth business, Mariner Container Corp., with the potential to supply new shipping containers made from polymers rather than steel, which would be easier to recycle and to guard with wireless monitors. Lampe also is looking to Asheville for investment advice as he raises the millions of dollars needed to back a player in the new industry.

In Arden, Homeland Integrated Security Systems is ramping up the production of the patented Cyber Tracker, a geographic information systems device that could monitor the steady flow of trucks in and out of ports. The company also sees possibilities closer to home for school officials who want to follow their school buses online or even for parents who want to track their teenage drivers' whereabouts.

With the recent controversy over an Arab-owned company taking over management of six major U.S. ports, the threat of a terrorist attack through American seaports has gained new attention. Since the Sept 11., 2001, terrorist attacks, homeland security has burgeoned into a $3 billion annual market, according to Lampe, a veteran of the shipping industry.

Lampe sees a way to deliver 1,000 new manufacturing jobs around Catawba County, another rural county hit hard by the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs in textiles and furniture in recent years.

The payoff won't be just in new job security with high-tech jobs, but in better national security. "I'll define success as people sleeping better knowing that we're doing what we do," Dobson said.

Navigational Sciences
For Dobson's NavSci, building a second office in the mountains is a kind of a homecoming. Dobson's technology for monitoring shipping containers originally came from the mountains in Tennessee. At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, federal scientists developed a technology called software-defined radio to communicate with PORT: Entrepreneur looks to develop recyclable, safe shipping container

robots sent inside the deep radioactive reaches of nuclear plants where humans cannot safely venture.

NavSci can use the new radio technology to accurately track individual shipping containers despite the interference from metal boxes.

Dobson's company is already wiring the port of Charleston with hardware to virtually track every container. That information will race up to the mountains through the huge broadband pipelines laid by Rep. Charles Taylor's Education and Research Consortium.

That broadband made Asheville a likely choice when Dobson went looking for a network headquarters.

Dobson has raised about $6.5 million from investors, including AdvantageWest's Blue Ridge Angel Investor Network in Asheville. The company also received about $1 million in a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

NavSci announced its move to Asheville in late 2004, and opened a small office in the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College's technology incubator last year. As the company nears production on the small 2-by-2 inch monitoring devices, more resources will come to Asheville for marketing and the network.

Mariner Container Corp.
While homeland security is a new industry, Lampe has been toying with his idea for a new shipping container for decades. "The whole argument we've been hearing about port security is highlighting problems we've had for the past 30 years. Terrorists have just shown us how vulnerable we are," he said.

Lampe knows the shipping industry from the inside. He comes with degrees from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and an engineering certificate from the Coast Guard as well as an MBA from the University of North Carolina.

Thirty years ago, Lampe wrote his thesis about the need for a recyclable container for international trade. At the time, he worried about the trade deficit with Japan as many more shipping containers from the Far East headed to the United States than went out. The imbalance is still about two to one with 16 million containers flowing into U.S. ports and about 8 million headed out.

"You can't get rid of steel containers because of the cost involved. More and more containers are being left on U.S. docks just emptied out," he said.

A recyclable container made of polymers instead of steel would be easier to reuse or recycle and could be more secure. Lampe had developed a process where he can fabricate a 40-foot long container out of polymers. Tracking and security devices could be implanted inside the skin, warning if the container was tampered with, rather than just the door. Polymer containers would be easier to X-ray than bulky steel boxes.

Lampe already has a market in mind: the U.S. Department of Defense. Not only do commercial goods come shipped in containers, the nation's defense travels by these boxes through the very same ports, he explained.

The Defense department is interested in controlling all of its supply chain, cutting the time "from the factory to the foxhole," Lampe said. "They want to know that the containers are secure and that they can grind them up at the end."

Lampe has been talking with Dobson at NavSci about possibly teaming up their technologies.

Lampe is looking to raise between $100 million and $200 million. If successful, he could envision manufacturing facilities on both the east and west coasts as well as the Far East. "This is a global problem. If it doesn't work, we'll just have the biggest boat anchors around."

But Lampe already has a backup plan for the manufacturing. If he can't sell the full 40-foot container to the shipping industry, he has scaled back the process to produce polymer septic tanks that weigh much less than their concrete counterparts.

Homeland Integrated Security Systems
Arden's Biltmore Park acts as headquarters to another player looking to make a difference in port security. Homeland Integrated Security Systems launched in August 2004 as a publicly traded company with new technology for global positioning system devices, those tracking devices that rely on satellite signals to pinpoint specific locations worldwide.

The Cybertracker was specifically designed for port security, but decision-makers are slow to pick a technology, said Frank Moody II, the company CEO. "The ports have some serious issues and deciding how they're going to do it."

The company has found success dealing with shipping companies worldwide who want to monitor their shipments. Other applications have been found for tracking tugboats on the Mississippi River to school buses in Tennessee or taxicabs in New York.

The device not only tracks but also processes data, allowing video and photographs to be sent to a network monitor, Moody explained. "Our company is about 20 percent tracking and 80 percent data processing. The market took off in a way we didn't expect. "

After a merger with a Tampa, Fla., software company, HISS boasts some 120 employees with $9 million in sales last year and a projected $25 million or more in 2006, Moody said.


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