Mainebiz

V O L . X X I I N O. V M A R C H 7 , 2 0 1 6 14 Enthusiasm for the recreational plane is high. Richards says he's already sold 30 "delivery posi- tions," which means buyers will take the planes when they are ready, which now is targeted some time in 2019. He already has secured $100,000 in non-refundable deposits. "I got involved because I wanted to buy one of the airplanes," he says. "And I realized TechPlace is the perfect place to do this development." Telescoping partitions to protect sensitive areas When a hospital has a sudden water leak and needs to protect patients, it can quickly erect a protective barrier using temporary telescoping partitions made by STARC (Simple Telescopic Airtight Reusable Containment) Systems. e two-year-old company, started in part- nership with owner Tim Hebert of Hebert Construction in Lewiston, now has five employ- ees, including Hebert and COO Bruce Bickford, plus some unpaid workers and a new investor, John Wipfler, who serves as an advisor. e plan, says Bickford, is to hire another two to three people for shop assembly and sales by the end of the year. Bickford says Hebert got the idea for the panels when his construction company faced many contain- ment issues in the health care field. Previously, plastic sheeting or quickly placed drywall was used, or trans- parent walls that offered little privacy, he says. But the telescoping modules, which can be stretched from 6 feet 10 inches to 10 feet 3 inches and have rubber or tape at their edges for total containment, can be constructed quickly and neatly, then removed when repairs are completed. e alu- minum walls, which include some insulation, also help attenuate noise. He points to several customers in the region, including Central Maine Medical Center, which used upwards of 100-feet of modules to make its emer- gency room safer for staff and patients. Others using the modules include Maine Medical in Portland, St. Mary's in Lewiston, Eastern Maine Medical and Southern Maine Medical. Contractors are the typical customers that install the modules. "It takes about six to eight uses to pay back the investment," says Bickford. e system runs about $350 per linear foot. STARC will use some new MTI money for a forthcoming product line that Bickford says is "cheaper, better, faster and fire-rated." e new product will supplement the current product line, and could be used as a semi-permanent wall to iso- late a piece of equipment, for example, in a biotech or precision manufacturing line. He says TechPlace has worked well for the com- pany, which has 4,500-square-feet of space for about $3,000 per month, including heat, lights, a shop, air conditioning, furniture and even snow plowing. He plans to collaborate with the composites group in TechPlace on the new product, which could be made of a composite instead of aluminum to make it lighter and add other qualities. "We were one of the first industrial tenants here," he says. "We're expecting dramatic growth, but we'll stay here until we physically outgrow the space." Lori Valigra, Mainebiz senior writer, can be reached a t l v a l i g r a @ m a i n e b i z . b i z a n d @ LVa l i g r a » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Lab spinout that developed an autonomous, ad hoc wireless sensor network technology, and director of business development for a sport airplane company called MVP Aero that is still early stage. e wireless sensor network company is based in Cambridge, Mass.; he is the only employee in Brunswick, is a native Mainer and a University of Maine graduate in engineering. e network is aimed at pharmaceutical and biotech companies as well as controlled storage environments like computer server farms for the "cloud" to keep the environmental temperature steady. So far, that company has an MTI seed grant totaling upwards of $60,000 with a match of about $100,000. Wireless Sensors is prototyping its net- work components in Brunswick and outsourcing manufacturing to AMI in Winthrop. It also is using the 3D printers in the common industrial space. "We have our own low-end 3D printers but the ones being installed here now are medium-to-high range. We couldn't justify buying them, but they're available to us here, and we have access to all the other facilities like conference rooms, printers, the machine shop and Internet," he says. e newest technology is at MVP Aero, a com- pany in Minnesota in which he's invested a modest amount. at experimental plane will be built in Brunswick, with the nearby air strip a handy asset. "It's a relatively new category — the light sport plane — certified by the Federal Aviation Administration about seven years ago," he says. "It was to spur innova- tion and activity and decrease the cost of airplanes." e planes, he says, can cost around $200,000. He calls them recreational vehicles as opposed to transport airplanes. ey operate outside the regular airspace for commercial flights. e MVP, or most versatile plane, is being designed in Minneapolis by former engineers at Cirrus Aircraft. When completed, the plane should be able to fold up its wings to fit into a garage or a marina for storage, land on water and even serve as a camper on which you can hang a hammock to sleep. Richards says he is helping get it to the next phase. e design is done and full-scale proto- type models will be built and tested in Brunswick. After all, Richards notes, TechPlace has the former Brunswick Naval Air Station's advanced airport facilities and is near both the Androscoggin River and Casco Bay for testing. ere also is local exper- tise in composites and boatbuilding. Stewart Hunt, general manager North American opera- tions for InSphero. InSphero is developing biomimetic spheroid microtissue technology to derisk drug develop- ment. TechSpace provided them enough space for U.S. manufacturing and a lab plus proximity to Boston. TOP: Bruce Bickford, COO of STARC Systems, which builds Simple Telescopic Airtight Reusable Containment (STARC) temporary wall panels. STARC chose TechPlace for its location and space for manufacturing, flat-rate rent, conference room and Lunch and Learns. It plans to draw on Composites Technology Center expertise for next- generation panels. BOTTOM: Paul Richards, director of business development for MVP Aero and CEO of Wireless Sensors. MVP makes a sport plane for land and water; Wireless Sensors makes ad hoc sensor networks for large server farms. Richards is a native Mainer who moved back for TechSpace and its access to 3D printers, runway to test sport plane and the possibility to collaborate with Maine Composites Alliance while developing the plane. P H O T O S / L O R I VA L I G R A P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY For more on the TechPlace entrepreneurs, go to www.mainebiz.biz/TechPlace @

• Cover