I am not from New mexico, I dont know what you have against New Mexico.I don't even know if its nice(probably is)..as for name calling You started,I didn't..I guess we should not only look out for the bus tommw,but PUSSY GALORE and her flying circus. But for your education.....Out of an invisible force
evolves an industry
Following a slow start, optics is beginning to gain more national support, culminating statewide into a growing industry.
By Sherry Robinson
Tribune reporter
In your home and office, you can't swing a (computer) mouse without hitting a device made possible by optics. It is, simply, the use of light and covers the waterfront from lasers to sensors to lenses.
If you buy cornflakes, you're an optics user
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Albuquerque is home to a budding optics industry cluster that's among a handful in the nation.
Today the city has an estimated 150 optics companies and enough activity for Albuquerque Economic Development Inc. to designate optics an area of focus. Optics is among six industry clusters singled out for attention by the recently launched public-private Next Generation Economy Initiative.
"It's an unknown industry" to the public, says Boyd Hunter, president of the New Mexico Optics Industry Association. "A lot of companies tend to be small, and their services are generally sold somewhere else. For the most part, we're an export industry. It puts you in the situation where the average person doesn't see the impact."
Most optics clusters have a seed, and ours was Kirtland Air Force Base and its laboratories -- first the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, established in 1961, and later the Airborne Laser Laboratory, which demonstrated that an aircraft-mounted laser could hit moving targets.
In the 1980s, such companies as Rockwell, Hughes, TRW and PerkinElmer opened offices here to support the airborne-laser program, recalls Fred Way, who came here with PerkinElmer. Soon entrepreneurs started optics companies, but they "had the flavor of the DOD," says Art Guenther, former chief scientist at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory.
However, the base, the contractors and optics programs at Sandia Laboratories imported a lot of talent, say Hunter and Way.
Adding to the momentum, the University of New Mexico in 1983 started a Ph.D. program in optical sciences and has turned out 100 optics Ph.D. students in just the last 10 years. "That's not an insignificant number in this field," Guenther says.
Out of this pool of expertise, entrepreneurs emerged. The first New Mexico company may have been CVI Laser Corp., organized in 1972. In 1983 Way started Spectron, which he sold to Titan Corp., and then started ElectroOptical Systems, which became Decade Optical Systems. Most companies are less than 10 years old.
"There's an infrastructure of knowledgeable people who create a business base," Way says. "There are technologists in town -- people who grew up with this industry. People are the resource. It's not the great climate or state incentives."
The current surge of interest masks the industry's slow start.
"In the early 1980s -- we still laugh -- the public thought optics was a dead field," says Hunter. "Even in the early '90s, when I left graduate school, the job market was dead."
In the mid-90s the field gained momentum, driven by communications applications. (Can you say "fiber optics"?) The communications sector's new glamour tended to rub off on everything else.
Today the optics industry in New Mexico covers a broad spectrum (pun intended) that includes manufacturers of lasers, sensors, components and instruments; producers of entire systems; designers; and suppliers. Here are a few:
CVI is a general purpose optics company whose stock in trade is its stock in trade. The company is one of the world's largest manufacturers of laser-optical components and electro-optical systems and is known for always having parts in stock.
CIC Photonics Inc. designs and manufactures instruments used to analyze and identify the presence of chemicals, solids, liquids and gas in industrial products. Computer chip makers, for example, use its products to determine the purity of their etching gases. CIC moved here in 1994 to be closer to the labs and because president Richard Meyer wanted to live in New Mexico.
Decade Optical Systems Inc. manufactures solid-state lasers and their components.
East Mountain Optomechanical Inc. supplies parts used in the rapid prototyping of other industrial components.
MicroOptical Devices Inc. provides optical components and subsystems.
SVS Inc., an employee-owned company, specializes in electro-optical systems and image processing.
Optical Insights Inc. has developed an imaging system that takes photos in normal and infrared light to reveal problems in everything from apples to human retinas.
LightPath Technologies Inc. develops and makes optical components from its patented GRADIUM glass.
WaveFront Sciences used adaptive optics, developed at Sandia for removing distortions in the atmosphere, to create a sensor that detects minute changes in laser beams. This quantified measurement of light reveals if a laser is malfunctioning.
"The interesting thing about optics demographics is they're generally small companies with an average of 10 to 15 employees," Guenther says. "They're very innovative. They're risk takers, they're agile and work hard."
In 1998, Guenther launched the New Mexico Optics Industry Association with help from Albuquerque Economic Development and Boyd Hunter. Along with stimulating growth of the local industry, they wanted to raise its profile. Supported by AED, the association has staged progressively larger exhibits at industry shows.
"In a year, we've managed to pop on the map," Hunter says. "People didn't know there was an industry in New Mexico."
Hunter expects the optics industry to take a decade to flower, with a lot of money spent in the meantime. Albuquerque is ahead of the curve, but "we need to beef ourselves up."
Says Way: "We have every reason to think it's going to grow. The forecast in the next few years is extremely promising. There are all different kinds of lasers, not just one kind. All of them are going on in New Mexico. The availability of White Sands and its laser test facility is a boon to New Mexico. It's a world-class test facility. That's important. And we have the absolute support of our Congressional delegation. They all recognize the importance of the electro-optics industry in New Mexico." |
