Tucson Tech: Applied Energetics looks for rebirth in directed-energy field | Business News | tucson.com
A Tucson-based company that went dormant five years ago after developing directed-energy technologies is looking to resurrect itself —again.
Applied Energetics Inc. — perhaps best known for developing a controversial device designed to zap roadside bombs at the height of the war in Afghanistan — has acquired a local optics company with the aim of reviving its development of directed-energy weapons and specialty lasers.
Applied Energetics announced in late May that it had agreed to acquire Applied Optical Sciences, a company founded in 2010 by Applied Energetics co-founder Stephen McCahon.
McCahon, who formerly headed Raytheon’s directed-energy programs, was named chief scientist and full-time consultant to the merged company.
The company, which was founded in 2002 as Ionatron Inc., also recently tapped an optics industry leader and former scientific adviser as its chief executive.
Gregory Quarles, a physicist well-known in optics circles as former chief scientist for the Optical Society, was named CEO of Applied Energetics in April.
Quarles replaced George Farley, who was removed by a proxy vote of the company’s stockholders in March 2018, after major stockholders accused Farley of issuing stock and a salary to himself without stockholder approval. Applied Energetics filed a pending civil lawsuit against Farley in Delaware, where the company was incorporated.
Farley could not be reached for comment.
Company co-founder Thomas Dearmin was named acting CEO of Applied Energetics, but he died suddenly last August from complications due to a serious illness.
Applied Energetics’ board reached out to Quarles, who previously acted as an adviser to the company, and sold him on the idea of helping to resuscitate the company.
“I really appreciated the vision the new board had, and the energy that they had,” Quarles said. “I was energized by it. It sounded like there were new directions taking place and they wanted the right leadership in to play a role in that.”
Quarles, who has a doctorate in physics from Okahoma State University and holds five patents, is well-known in the optics community. At the Optical Society in Washington, D.C., his duties included content development for the group’s incubator programs, annual meetings and setting up partnerships with research laboratories around the world.
His 30 years in optics and photonics include stints as a consultant, CEO of an advanced photonics firm and co-founder of an optics-based startup.
Quarles said one of his conditions for accepting the CEO post was that the company develop technologies that can be used both for military or commercial purposes.
“For any company, you really need to be able to address dual-use technology, so you don’t get pinned into a position of having to deal only with defense-only sectors,” Quarles said. “They were amenable to that, there’s excellent overlap in those areas, so I agreed and came on board.”
The company has reported no revenue since suspending business operations and reverting to “shell company” status in 2014, but in 2017 the company announced it was ramping up research and development operations.
That progress
AI
