GlobalSecurity.org In the News

Technology companies contribute to war on terrorism

By Ellen Lee

At the peak of World War II, Henry J. Kaiser boasted _ and proved _ that he could build a ship a week.

Don Mattson, 10 years old at the time, watched the launching of a Kaiser Liberty ship, one of thousands built in assembly-line fashion to transport war supplies.

The impression of that day remains crystal clear for Mattson, now 70 and chief operating officer of Newark-based InVision Technologies, one of two companies certified to make airport bomb-detection machines. Since Sept. 11, Mattson has overseen the formation of the company's own assembly line as InVision multiplied from 180 to 435 employees, deployed day and night shifts, and shortened its manufacturing time by three-fold, all to produce hundreds of machines to secure the nation's airports as part of a government mandate.

"Month after month, it got better, and they got more out faster," Mattson said about the Liberty ships. "That's our task." The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks created a war effort like none other, one that has pushed technology companies of every rank to contribute in some way to homeland security. Some have gone as far as likening it to their own "Manhattan Project," a mission to develop the high-tech gadgets critical to winning the "war on terrorism," the way the atomic bomb sealed the end of World War II.

The Bay Area, home to such notable research institutions as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, UC Berkeley and Stanford, will be a likely nesting ground in the growth of new security technology. In the year since Sept. 11, companies like InVision, which once had to prod the government for attention, have been yanked to the forefront. Others have refocused their energy on the lucrative market. And in the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, new businesses concentrating on security technology have been conceived.

"There is a new industry that's being born, a new market that's being shaped," said Jonathan Tal, president and publisher of Homeland Security Research Corp. in San Jose, which itself was formed after the attacks. "And that's the homeland security and counter-terrorism market."

Some ideas have stuck, others haven't. Many more still await funds that have yet to be approved or doled out. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va., compared the push into security technology to a game in which "many will play, few will win." "Everybody is buying lottery tickets," he said. "What everybody is doing is playing the odds."

Here is a look at a few of the Bay Area companies at the forefront of this emerging market:

_ SafeView Inc.: SafeView didn't exist before Sept. 11. The Menlo Park company is still in its early stages and is in the process of attracting venture capital funding. Rick Rowe, its CEO, is also its only employee, although he has a team of about eight to 10 employees lined up once the company secures financing.

The fledging company wasn't created out of Sept. 11, Rowe says. But the attacks certainly opened up a market for it. "This company has been formed because of that market growth," said Rowe, a West Point graduate with a background in engineering.

_ SAFEVIEW has licensed a holographic imaging technology developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington. When someone walks through the portal, the person is "illuminated" with high-frequency radio waves that form a detailed picture on the screen.

Unlike technology developed to screen luggage and other cargo, it's safe for use on the human body. Just as important, unlike the metal detectors that passengers pass through at airports, this system detects plastic or ceramic weapons, plastic explosives, and other non-metallic contraband.

Researchers at the laboratory had created a prototype as early as 1992, but over the years it received only a smattering of interest in taking the product into the commercial market. Sept. 11 changed that. Several months later, Battelle, a non-profit that operates the laboratory for the Department of Energy, had found a partner. Rowe said he hopes to begin selling the machine in the next 12 to 18 months.

_ ANCORE CORP.: Sept. 11 also spurred the growth of Santa Clara-based Ancore, another company that hopes to offer an alternative for airport, as well as port and border, security. It scans the object with neutrons _ as large as a truck or as small as a shoe or bottle of wine _ and searches for the distinct "signatures" of drugs, weapons and other suspicious materials.

Mark Platshon, executive chairman of Ancore, joined the company a few months ago as part of its push to transition from research and development to the commercial market. He's organized the company's first sales group, plans to double the company's work force from 40 to 80, and has been lining up relationships with companies and government agencies that before had not given the company the light of day.

"Before we were small voices," Platshon said.

The U.S. Customs Service had been hesitant before Sept. 11 to give the green light on a machine Ancore had developed to detect drugs at border crossings. After Sept. 11, securing the nation's borders became paramount, and the company received the go-ahead for a $10 million project to construct a facility at the El Paso, Texas, border crossing, in which trucks passing through the facility are examined not only for drugs but also other weapons.

_ VARIAN MEDICAL SYSTEMS INC.: Varian Medical Systems was more involved in making machines to detect and treat cancer than checking cargo for explosives before Sept. 11. But now the Palo Alto firm has applied several lines of its X-ray machines for security purposes.

"In general, it was seen as a new market opportunity," said Chuck Blouir, marketing manager for Varian's imaging products. "The reality is there is a new business there. Security has to be improved, and someone has to supply the equipment to do that."

Its flat-panel image detector, used in hospitals to look at X-ray images, has been converted to screen packages, luggage and other containers. The technology is the same, and in fact has also been used for other industrial purposes, but the overall machine has been "beefed up" to make it more heavy duty and transportable. Last year, the National Security Agency purchased several of the detectors, which cost between $100,000 and $150,000 each, and Varian is expecting that it will purchase more in the coming months.

Another system, used to treat tumors, has been incorporated into other cargo-inspection systems made by manufacturers such as L-3 Communications and Rapiscan Security Products Inc. Those companies, in turn, are working to sign contracts with the federal government.

_ TIBCO SOFTWARE INC.: The Palo Alto software company creates applications that allow different networks to communicate and share information with each other but had concentrated mainly on the business market and virtually had no contacts in the government.

After Sept. 11, it took just two weeks for Tibco to decide to pursue a deal with the government and 60 days to retool its product, including adding more security measures, so that it suited the government's needs.

"It was a no-brainer," said Rene White, vice president of strategic marketing. Tibco is now installing the system for the newly created Homeland Security Department.

_ SECUGEN CORP.: James Sortino, vice president of sales and business development of biometrics firm SecuGen in Sunnyvale, didn't get his hopes up when he was approached at a conference last November by a Pennsylvania treasury department representative who was interested in installing biometric technology for its computer network. SecuGen uses fingerprint technology to secure computer systems: In lieu of passwords, a person touches a specially designed mouse, keyboard or "hamster" attached to the computer that authorizes the person to access the computer and its applications.

Sortino expected the deal to wrap up in 12 to 18 months. Four months later, the company closed the contract; it's now working on another project for the department.

The company's fingerprint technology is also being tested at several airports. At John F. Kennedy International airport and LaGuardia Airport in New York, frequent-flier passengers use their fingerprints to pick up their tickets. Chicago's O'Hare International airport and Salt Lake City airport have been using the company's fingerprint technology to improve security. Airport workers input their personal identification number, show their badge, and enter their thumbprint in order to gain access to different areas of the building.

_ ACTIVCARD S.A.: Fremont-based ActivCard had been around long before Sept. 11, but in the year since it has been inundated with demand. Take its sales cycle: the time it takes for the company to sell its smart card, a high-tech ID card that keeps track of a person's access into buildings, manages the person's medical benefits, encrypts e-mail, and handles other authentication issues, has shrunk from 12 months to between four and six months.

Since Sept. 11, ActivCard has helped develop 1 million digital identification cards for the U.S. Department of Defense, part of the department's mandate to issue cards to all 4.3 million of its active personnel by the end of 2003. It also took on 200 new corporate customers in the most recent quarter, adding to its roster corporations such as Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.

"We've been investing in this for over a decade, so we're not too worried about (competitors) catching up in 10 weeks," said ActivCard Chairman and CEO Steven Humphreys.

_ MICROFLUIDIC SYSTEMS INC.: The interest in MicroFluidic's biodefense technology _ the company focuses on detecting pathogens, such as anthrax _ has come not only from the U.S. government and large corporate players, but also internationally, from the British Consulate and British Aerospace.

CEO M. Allen Northrup left Cepheid last year and formed Microfluidic Systems, founding the company in his home in Berkeley before moving it to an office in Pleasanton earlier this year. It recently received a $550,000 contract from the U.S. Army's Soldier Biological and Chemical Command to develop a pathogen-detection system.

"The nice prize so to speak is we're very small, but they recognize our technology," said Northrup.

(c) 2002, Contra Costa Times