Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1512769
W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 13 D E C E M B E R 1 1 , 2 0 2 3 F O C U S M A N U FA C T U R I N G D own an inconspicuous side road in the Penobscot County city of Old Town, in a large but unremarkable former truck garage, big things are going on for the global shipping industry. A startup called Global Secure Shipping is making a new type of shipping container built from high-strength composite materials embed- ded with advanced sensors designed to enable government and commercial companies to fight theft and tampering. e container commercializes patented tech- nology resulting from years of Department of Homeland Security-funded research and devel- opment at the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center and the Georgia Tech Research Institute. "e company and the technology is being looked at by the shipping industry with a lot of interest," says Robert Lindyberg, CEO of Global Secure. Lindyberg recently returned from a National Defense Transportation Association and U.S. Transportation Command co-sponsored meeting in Orlando, Fla., where he met with shippers and government agen- cies. He started traveling to government agency and commercial shipping conferences in 2019 and has been ramping up the road show since 2021. "ere's a great deal of interest in utilizing the technology to reduce theft and pilferage and to reduce tampering," he says. Flying colors e project dates to a solicitation issued 20 years ago by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency for secure shipping technologies. UMaine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center was one of a number of the winning respondents and set about designing and testing secure containers. Global Secure was established as a spinoff company in 2018 to commercialize production. Outgrowing its lab space, it moved two years later to the 17,500-square- foot building on city-owned land at 122 Penny Road, where logging trucks were once housed and main- tained but had been vacant for a couple of years. A year later, the first-generation container passed various tests with flying colors. To date, Global Secure has produced 32 shipping containers for the federal government and has 20 employees. We're proud to offer a wide selection of metal roofing and siding products. Give your home or business the color and style you're looking for with the durability and quality that only metal roofing and siding can provide. NOW OFFERING Screw Down Metal Roofing for just $3.39 per linear foot WAREBUTLER.COM FREE DELIVERY ACROSS THE STATE metals@warebutler.com STANDARD COLORS ONLY Free strapping available for pick-up at our Stillwater and Palmyra locations Visit one of our stores, or email us using the contact form on our website, for more information on these products. Advertised price for limited time C O N T I N U E D O N F O L L OW I N G PA G E » If you've got half a million dollars of electronics or pharmaceuticals in a container and you foil a theft attempt, that's quite a bit of savings. — Robert Lindyberg Global Secure Shipping