| The business
of homeland security
Maine Sunday Telegram
March 9, 2003
Jeff Bardin and his partners at Treadstone 71 share
a trait that most people wouldn't consider an asset.
"We're all a little bit paranoid," Bardin
said - and the Scarborough start-up has found that
government agencies and private companies are eager
to tap into that paranoia.
Treadstone 71, named for the site of an ultra-secret
agency in a spy novel, is a security company, but the
partners aren't worried about office locks or motion
detectors. Instead, they focus on securing a company's
ideas and plans.
"Much like there's a hardening of physical structures,
we're hardening the information side of the house," said
Bardin.
Treadstone 71 is one of a growing number of Maine
companies that are finding a market for products that
wouldn't have garnered much attention 18 months ago,
before Sept. 11 resurrected a term that hadn't been
uttered in decades: homeland security.
Around Maine, companies are working on homeland security
projects such as sensors to detect chemical agents
in the air, better airport screening devices, methods
to allow easier tracking of what's being shipped into
the country and high-tech methods to defend Navy ships
from terrorist attack, among other ventures.
The market for homeland security is already big and
likely to grow, said Dawn Van Zant, the president of
ECON Investor Relations, a company that works with
businesses involved in the sector.
Van Zant noted that the budget for the new Department
of Homeland Security is nearly $40 billion, but the
total market is estimated at nearly $100 billion when
spending by local and state governments and the private
sector is included. The private sector alone, she said,
is expected to make up almost half of that figure.
Van Zant said a lot of attention has been focused
on how much money will be going to large defense contractors
as a result of the looming war with Iraq, but that
overlooks the longer-term spending likely to result
from terrorism prevention.
"There's a huge market opportunity for those
areas and the bigger defense companies might not be
the ones to benefit," she said.
In Maine, it's mostly smaller - and in many cases,
very new - companies that are involved in homeland
security.
Bardin said his company is working with government
agencies as well as for private companies that are
either required to or are voluntarily upgrading their
electronic security.
He declined to identify the firm's clients, but said
they include companies in Maine as well as others around
the country.
Bardin said wireless networks are one of the weakest
links in a company's attempts to secure its information.
Few companies realize that simply installing a wireless
network, without any security systems, is like leaving
the office unlocked at night.
"Most people say, 'I want a wireless (network),'
plug it in and walk away," he said. "A lot
of people have the false sense that if they have a
firewall, they have security."
Bardin
said he periodically cruises around Portland in a
process called "war-driving" - testing
the security of wireless networks. During a typical
day last week in his car - equipped with an antenna,
a laptop computer and special software - he picked
up 10 wireless networks.
Only one was secure.
"I could sit outside and surf the Internet off
those connections, among other things," if he
wanted to, Bardin said.
Treadstone 71's staff all worked for the government
or military and had high-level security clearances.
Bardin, for example, was a tank commander in the Army
and also worked for the National Security Agency, where
he broke codes and ciphers and translated intercepted
Arabic messages.
Now, he helps businesses determine whether their computer
systems are vulnerable, conducts tests to see if he
can hack into a company's networks and recommends ways
to make the systems more secure.
Bardin said the business, which was founded last April,
got off to a slow start because of the soft economy,
but interest is picking up. He said Treadstone 71 has
a growing network of contractors around the country
to work with and has proposals before several agencies.
Other Maine companies have been involved in anti-terrorism
ventures for a longer period, back before it gained
urgency.
Sensor
Research & Development has been around
for 10 years, mostly working on sensors that monitor
air and water pollution. Interest in the company's
chemical and biological detectors, which already were
in development, picked up significantly after Sept.
11, 2001.
The Orono company is entering the home stretch in
its attempt to develop a reliable, hand-held sensor,
about the size of a pager, under a contract with the
Defense Department.
The work is complex, involving tiny metal oxide films
that react to certain chemicals. John McCarthy, the
company's proposal manager, said the difficulty involves
making it sensitive enough to detect minute traces
of dangerous chemicals, but not too sensitive.
"It doesn't help much when the sensors are always
going off," McCarthy said. But, "if it doesn't
go off when the stuff is there that's bad, that's bad
as well."
Another Maine company is grappling with much the same
problem.
Detection
Technologies is developing its sensors to pick up
signs of chemical or biological agents as well
as metal and explosives, although the company is looking
at devices that can be used in airports or mounted
in office corridors, in addition to hand-held units.
The company, based in South Portland, uses spectral
array analysis - essentially looking at the air around
a person or a piece of luggage and determining if the "signature" of
something hazardous is present.
Rand Stowell, the president of the company, said the
opportunities for a company that develops affordable,
reliable sensors are enormous.
"The private market is, we think, the major opportunity," he
said. "We know it's big enough, and if our technology
is as dramatic a leap forward as we think it could
be, we think it will be a major market."
McCarthy,
of Sensor Research & Development, said
it's too early to tell how profitable his company's
product might be, since they don't yet have a good
idea of what it will cost. He said the company plans
to continue with its non-homeland security work as
well, although the chemical and biological detector
is the company's primary product currently.
A few other Maine companies have more of an idea,
rather than a product, to enhance security.
William
Hagenzieker runs Coastwise Inc. in Rockport and has
a patent on a "sled" that would hold
the material being shipped in cargo containers, the
kind that move from ship to tractor-trailer.
Hagenzieker said the shipping industry doesn't have
enough cargo containers to go around, so his sled would
allow material to be easily moved from a container
to a traditional tractor-trailer, freeing up the container
for the next sailing. But he said a byproduct of the
idea is that it would allow customs inspectors to check
out what's being shipped much more readily than by
opening up a container and digging through the contents.
Federal officials have said that they worry about
being able to track all the material that's being shipped
into the U.S. to make sure terrorists aren't smuggling
in chemical or biological weapons.
Hagenzieker said he hopes that, with a little more
engineering, his sled could be in production in a year
or so.
Military work, long a mainstay of the Maine economy,
is also shifting toward anti-terrorism projects.
David Patch, the president of Technology Systems Inc.,
said his company is refining some of its products for
the Navy to help defend ships against terrorism.
Technology
Systems, based in Wiscasset, works in the field of "augmented reality." He
said one example of the company's work is a monitor
that combines
an underwater camera mounted on the bow of a ship with
computerized navigation equipment.
The result is a camera picture overlaid with information
from a computer on buoy locations, ship channels and
even the location of underwater mines, derived from
a Navy database.
Patch said the technology has other applications as
well. For instance, a camera could be mounted on the
mast of a Navy ship in port and a computer could track
smaller boats that are nearby. If one made a sudden
turn toward the ship, sailors onboard could be notified
and watch to make sure the ship is not threatened.
Patch said the work is exciting and promising, but
he notes that similar products are being developed
around the world and Maine companies will have to keep
pushing to stay in the market.
"We're on the leading edge of it, but the competition
is all around us," he said. |
