Aerial reconnaissance takes off for company
Firm won Army invention award
Flight Landata Inc., a small North Andover firm, has developed high-resolution digital-imaging systems to collect reconnaissance images of Iraq and Afghanistan that are shot from aircraft.
The company, which has 25 employees and is based at Lawrence Municipal Airport, recently won a 2006 "Army Greatest Invention of the Year" award for the patented BuckEye program, which collects intelligence from sensors and cameras.
The Army's Topographical Engineering Center at Fort Belvoir in Alexandria, Va., and several other contractors also shared the honor. The center is part of the Army Corps of Engineers.
"To date, the BuckEye program has collected over 500,000 individual color images, representing 17,000 square kilometers of data, primarily over cities in Iraq and Afghanistan, facilitating urban warfare planning, . . ." the Army Corps of Engineers stated in a release.
Flight Landata was founded in 1991 as an aerial photography specialist. The privately held firm owns three small turboprop planes and leases others as needed.
But its focus shifted to military work after Sept. 11, 2001, chief executive Donald Florence said last week.
Three years later, Florence, 62, traveled to Iraq to oversee the original BuckEye system, which weighed 279 pounds. The current system weighs only 20 pounds, thanks, he said, to refinements made by the firm's chief scientist and vice president, Xiuhong Sun.
Sun, 54, left his native China in 1989 and did postdoctoral work in remote-sensing technology at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He joined the North Andover firm 12 years ago.
It is remote-sensing capabilities that are at the heart of the firm's business of capturing thousands of images from aircraft on reconnaissance and surveillance missions.
Since 2004, Flight Landata has received more than $10 million in Army contracts and "several million dollars" from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said Florence, one of the firm's initial investors who bought out two partners' interests in 1997. He became chief executive officer four years ago. He is also chairman.
It's expected that total revenue this year will be "well over $10 million," compared to between $6 million and $7 million last year, he said.
Another large Army contract "is in the works" for aerial-survey work in Afghanistan that could begin this fall, Florence said.
An Andover resident, Florence is a well-traveled entrepreneur who kiddingly refers to himself as "an airport bum."
Michael Miller, general manager of Lawrence Municipal Airport, described Florence as "a Jimmy Buffett-type character, a great guy."
"He's a pilot, a race car driver, and has been involved in real estate development," Miller said. "He built 20 hangar units here - among other successful ventures."
But, for now, Florence said he's focusing solely on defense work, including pursuing contracts with the other armed services. " A big part of this business is military contracts, so, at this point, we don't want to get involved on the commercial side," he said.
Meantime, Flight Landata's technological efforts indicate that the firm is on the right track, according to an Army official and a technical consultant to NASA.
"It's incredible what Flight Landata has been able to do as a very small business," said Joe Pimenta, a deputy program manager for the Army's BuckEye program. "The firm's sensors have helped a lot with our mapping, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Moreover," he said, "the firm is always ready to troubleshoot anything very quickly."
Over the last six years, NASA has purchased Flight Landata instruments "that look at reflected energy in specific wavelengths," said Fran Stetina, a consultant to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"As a result, colors of oceans and agricultural lands, for example, indicate the health of marine life and crops."
One NASA assignment last fall involved flying from Yuma, Ariz., "to have our equipment look at 26 different caves in three states to see whether there was water in those caves," Florence said. "This was in line with NASA's Mars research." Florence said his firm has no direct competition because "nobody has the technology that we have."
Because of the firm's unique technology, several large defense contractors have come calling to discuss a possible acquisition, but nothing has gone beyond the discussion stage, he said.
"Right now," Florence said, "we're concentrating on our own security business." 