Newsday (New York) March 22, 2004
Antiterror Gear: Slow selling with feds
By James Bernstein
After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government aimed its sights at terrorists near and far, creating a Department of Homeland Security and urging large and small companies to develop products that could be used in the war against al-Qaida and other groups.
The train bombing in Madrid two weeks ago that took more than 200 lives and injured at least 1,400 further accelerated the government's drive to stamp out terrorism in the United States and abroad.
So it would seem to be an easy matter for companies in the New York metropolitan area who have been at work on antiterrorism devices to get encouragement, support and feedback from Homeland Security, right?
Not exactly. As local companies become more involved in developing equipment that could be used in the war against terrorism, they are finding it difficult to deal with the Department of Homeland Security. It's not often easy, they say, to know what exactly the new agency is looking for, and the department's phone does not always get answered when companies call.
A trying process
"The process is very difficult," said Jay Fraser, who owns a Syosset company, Tracer Detection Technology Corp., that has been trying to sell Homeland Security on an anticounterfeiting device.
Nonetheless, the companies are forging ahead with a variety of inventions they hope will one day attract the agency's attention, even if the award of a contract is not exactly around the corner. The reason: Homeland Security's budget is about the fastest-growing in the federal government, and the department enjoys wide support.
In many cases, company executives and Homeland Security officials are just beginning a mating dance, and, at this point, a small company's chances of making a big sale are as likely as Osama bin-Laden apologizing for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mike Mattei, president of Fiber Management Solutions in Holbrook, has been trying to interest Homeland Security officials in buying his fiber-optic hardware, which could support surveillance equipment.
So far, there's been no sale.
"Obviously we feel our product has got applications for homeland security," Mattei said. "But it's a long process."
Maybe a very long one.
In the case of Mattei's company and others, the march toward selling equipment to Homeland Security - items such as fiber-optics, power amplifiers, sensors, monitoring devices or implements to scoop up suspected anthrax and ricin - has only just begun. Much of the reason is that the Homeland Security Department is still getting itself together. Consisting of 180,000 employees from 22 federal agencies, it began operating only a year ago this month.
The nascent agency has handed out few contracts, but executives are hoping the spigots will open soon. Most companies that have approached the department are small, staffed by only a handful of employees. They are mostly run by engineers who turned into entrepreneurs. And their travel budgets are small.
In the hope of helping companies connect with the department, Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) sponsored a "Homeland Security Exhibit" at Brookhaven National Laboratory in November. Executives of about 60 companies showed up.
Daniel Myer was among them. A decade ago, he started Communications Power Corp. in Hauppauge, a manufacturer of radio frequency power amplifiers used in machines that scan the human body for abnormalities. The company now has 20 employees.
At the Brookhaven Lab forum, Myer told Homeland officials the amplifiers could also be used to jam enemy communications systems or to detonate explosives. "There was interest in this, but it costs a lot of money," said Myer. Each costs several hundred thousand dollars, he said.
"Whether they go with us remains to be seen," Myer said. "It's all going to take time."
But executives are not being patient simply because they want to be thought of as nice guys. The wait, they say, may be well worth it.
Homeland Security budgets are soaring. The Bush administration is asking Congress for $40.2 billion for the department in fiscal 2005, which begins in October. That's a 10 percent increase over the department's fiscal '04 budget. In its first year, Homeland Security's budget was $31.2 billion.
Events such as the deadly terrorist attack in Madrid can only prompt Congress to go along with the administration's request, said James Jay Carafano, an analyst with the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. "I think Congress gets it," Carafano said.
Money for security
The additional money requested for the next fiscal year is to expand security at borders, ports and airports, beef up immigration enforcement and develop ways to combat biological and chemical attacks.
"They've got a blank check here," said John Pike, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, which studies defense budgets and programs. "The American people will support this."
Businesses seem to sense that is so.
Alex Boukas, a dentist who lives in Setauket and owns a company called Sopho Inc., has developed a suction-type device he says could be used to scoop up anthrax or ricin. He came up with it for quite different reasons.
In 1997, his 2-year-old son, Stephen, swallowed the nipple portion of a pacifier. Boukas didn't even realized it had happened until the child passed the nipple into his diaper. But Boukas worried the object could have lodged in his throat. He came up with a device that could suction out any object from a child's throat. Armed with what he now calls Tox Vac, Boukas showed up at Brookhaven Lab. "We spoke to a whole bunch of people," Boukas said recently, adding, " ... They [Homeland Security officials] said, 'OK, but what do we do with it?'"
At first, Boukas was disappointed. But, he thought later, the work must be done. So, Boukas said, "We're going ahead with our own private funding" to develop it.
Even large companies with big research budgets are in the preliminary stages of homeland security work. Phil Teel, a Northrop Grumman Corp. vice president who heads the company's Long Island operations, said it "will be a major part of our business over time."
But for now, Teel said, the company is writing a "white paper" for the Homeland Security Department on what buildings or sites in the New York metropolitan area might be "high-value targets," and how they could be better protected.
© Copyright 2004, Newsday, Inc.
