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News Article
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4 years later, R&D company ready to fly
By David Crowder
In the spring of 2005, REDCo created a buzz with an announcement that a new, scientific research and development company had set up headquarters in El Paso.
Four years later, Aerospace Missions Corp. admits it hasn’t reached any of its own objectives. There is no sprawling headquarters building or laboratory with dozens of highly paid researchers working on cutting-edge projects.
CEO Ricky Morgan says the simple fact is, things moved more slowly than he hoped, but the company’s seven-person staff will more than double by spring and labs are in the works.
Back in 2005, Aerospace Missions Corp. was, according to El Paso’s Regional Economic Development Corp., located in transitional facilities at 7362 Remcon Circle on the Westside, but would move to permanent quarters by year’s end that would grow to 40,000-square feet, including a 2,300-square-foot laboratory, by 2010.
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes added to the excitement by boosting Aerospace Missions Corp. and Morgan, its founder, president and CEO, said in a statement the company would “create 150 high-paying jobs and inject $35 million annually into our local economy.”
Since then, Aerospace Missions has received congressional earmark funding for its contracts but hasn’t reached those objectives. Morgan said things are happening now.
“In 2005, I said it was our plan to grow to 40,000-square feet. That remains our objective and our goal,” he said.
The company did establish itself in a suite of offices Downtown on the top floor of the former First City Bank building at 300 E. Main. Morgan said he has hired seven employees, including several Ph.D.s with hefty credentials in scientific research and experience at NASA and in the military.
They include former Army Col. Cary Westin, who retired this year as director of the Air Defense Artillery Test Directorate at Fort Bliss to become Morgan’s vice president of business development. A graduate of the Army War College, he also holds a master’s degree in military strategy from the War College.
Another is Ali A. Abtahi, a physicist who spent 20 years with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena before leaving NASA to join Aerospace Missions last March.
“It was an interesting opportunity to do work I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to do otherwise,” said Abtahi, who specialties include miniature sensors and optics.
Hiring high
A search of NASA Web sites shows he has been involved in dozens or of research projects and missions. In 2006, Abtahi won an Exceptional Achievement Medal at the JPL for designing, building and flight-testing a sensor for a small unmanned aerial vehicle for NASA.
“We also have a Ph.D. in math, aerospace engineering and environmental sciences,” Morgan said. “We are hiring very educated people just like we promised.”
In coming months, he said, Aerospace Missions’ roster of technically trained personnel will more than double to meet new contract demands.
“ASMC’s efforts to date have been theoretical studies, systems engineering, hardware systems requirements analyses, laboratory testing done by independent laboratories to determine applicability of technologies to meet customer requirements, and laboratory experiment designs,” Morgan said. “These prior efforts are necessary and required by standard systems engineering practices before laboratory work can commence.”
He also said they are starting operations in Georgia and California so they can lab test and field test the technologies conceived and developed by ASMC.
Also a physicist, Morgan has experience going back to the early 1970s as a researcher and project manager for the Jet Propulsion Lab and a high-tech optics company of his own in San Diego.
“We have another 18 employees we’re in the hiring process for now, and we’ll be announcing them soon,” Morgan said. “We’re planning on having by next summer a staff of 24 or 25, some at St. Marys, Ga., but most of them here.”
According to the employment opportunities page on the Aerospace Missions Web site, www.aerospacemissions.com, the positions the company is advertising to fill include a vice president for research and development, 11 engineers with different specialties, two more physicists and a lead mechanical engineer.
Many of the skills will be aimed at refinements of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and the miniaturization of the payloads they will carry.
UAVs range from the military’s large weapons-carrying Predators to far smaller, hand-launched aircraft used for various types of search and surveillance by the military, law enforcement and other government agencies, including the Border Patrol.
Earmarks and Reyes
The work Aerospace Missions is doing is not classified but it is highly technical, and getting information about the contracts and nature of the company’s work isn’t easy.
Morgan said he is not free to talk about the contracts because the company’s clients, which include the Army, require press or other public questions along with the company’s answers to be submitted in writing for approval before any information is released.
The company’s Web site boasts, “Aerospace Missions Corporation (ASMC) has set a new standard of excellence as the first exclusive R&D company in El Paso, Texas.”
It continues, “As the Sun City’s new standard-bearer, ASMC not only provides scientific, engineering and technical assistance services to the military and NASA, but is developing revolutionary aerospace technologies that will transform the way NASA and the military fulfill their missions.”
Westin said the claims on the Web site may seem exaggerated, but they are not.
Since 2005, he said, the company has won 10 NASA and Defense Department contracts, about half of which have been funded by congressional earmarks.
“The important question is, do we have the technical expertise and wherewithal to carry it all out?” Westin said. “With the team we have assembled and the advanced degrees our engineers and scientists hold, I don’t think that can be disputed.”
Aerospace Missions sought no city incentives in 2005, but was already the beneficiary of a $1 million federal earmark appropriation – the first of more to come – from Reyes.
At the time, Reyes said he had been working with Morgan for several years and viewed his plans to develop miniature sensors for UAVs as important enough to national security to warrant his continued support.
Reyes spokesman Vincent Perez, in a written response to questions, stated that “Aerospace Missions Corporation has received $1 million in defense appropriations each year from 2005 to 2009.”
“However,” Perez added, “note that the Army keeps a percentage of the amount appropriated to Aerospace Missions. The company receives roughly less than 80 percent of the appropriation in a given year. The appropriation for 2008 was just released in August 2009.”
Projections
In addition, Rep. Jack Kingsberg, R-Ga., added a $3-million earmark to assist the company’s plans for offices and a laboratory in the coastal community of St. Marys, not far from a submarine base at Kings Bay, Ga.
“The purpose of the earmarks is to mature our revolutionary technology to the point where we can turn it into hardware and/or instruments,” Morgan said. “Earmarks are not to make the company viable.”
Asked how the money has been spent, Morgan responded in writing: “All ASMC contracts using ‘earmark’ funding have been awarded through the standard federal competitive selection process based on our proposals in response to requests for proposals issued by the federal government.”
He added, “To date, ASMC has been awarded a total of just over $5 million in contracts related to federal earmarks since 2005. ASMC has received a total of $3.1 million for performance on these contracts since 2005, or slightly more than $600,000 per year.”
As for REDCo, which was part of the big announcement back in 2005, marketing director Kim Portner deferred questions about Aerospace Missions to the company itself, but said projections and goals are just that.
“We have goals that are set and there are all kinds of factors why the company may or may not reach them,” she said.
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| James - posted: 3/31/2010 12:21:56 PM
They should consider highering actual business people to handle business development and phd's to perform research. | | djaymick - posted: 11/17/2009 9:52:12 PM
As a person who has almost 20 years in the startup industry, I worked for a company that was staffed by brilliant people. They came from two established companies in the US. The people named to head up the joint venture was scientists from one company. They developed some very successful products.
The problems that we had was they never had to run a company. Coming from successful companies, the developed budgets and the money was granted from the executives. Once they developed their products, it was then moved to someone else - the marketing and sales divisions. And they then started on their next projects.
These individuals were very intelligent. But, they were scientists. They were not business people. Anyone who has spent time in a lab will realize that once you start a project, new things develop. To illustrate, if you are trying to do research for cancer, you might find that the research will do something completely different, like lowering cholesterol. Business people keep these scientists grounded and focused on their tasks. They put the secondary findings on the back burner, to be funded with the profits of the main research. With scientists in charge of companie, they lose that grounding. They go all sorts of directions, while spending tremendous amounts of money with no incoming revenue stream. This is one of the major reasons startups fail.
I read this article and saw the same issues that I saw with this company. They use the excuse that they are smarter than most people and therefore shouldn't be questioned. Good business people know their limitation and aren't afraid to admit it. They find good people to compliment them. I don't see the case here. The people that are described in this article have no business background. They are Ph.Ds, where you can write a thesis to get this "honor" or former government employees. | |
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