Mike Hodgson Associate Editor | Posted: Sunday, February 25, 2007 12:00 am
A project to upgrade a 1960s-era rocket-launch monitoring system at Vandenberg Air Force Base has earned a prestigious industry award for a Santa Maria company.
Quintron was recently notified it had won the 2007 Frost & Sullivan North American C4ISR Product Innovation of the Year Award.
“It/s really a very prestigious award, especially for a company like ourselves,C says David E. Wilhite, vice president and general manager of the Telecom Systems Division, as he discusses the achievement in Quintron/s conference room.
Frost & Sullivan is one of the leading market research and consulting firms in the world, Wilhite says. It has 26 global offices and more than 1,500 consultants, analysts and economists who research and analyze corporations and their products.
“C4ISRC stands for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and Quintron is involved in virtually all of those areas.
Quintron/s ability to adapt its “off the shelfC DICES IV product to the specific needs of Vandenberg/s launch controllers, bringing the operation into the 21st century, earned the company the award.
Behind the scenes
Although Quintron has been in operation for 37 years, many people are unfamiliar with the company and what it does because its clients are usually government agencies, and the systems it builds are hardly household products.
Its simple, earth-toned building, sitting well back from Blosser Road just north of Betteravia Road, gives no clue to the high-tech design and production work that goes on behind its walls.
Wilhite himself doesn/t fit the image one might expect, given his job and his company/s products, as he greets a visitor in the lobby wearing a denim shirt with a Quintron logo and a pair of Dockers on a Friday morning.
Friendly but direct, he easily discusses the company and what it does before leading a tour of the Quintron facilities.
The company/s clients, he notes, range from the Department of Defense, NASA and the National Security Agency to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and even local school districts.
The company was formed in 1970 by five partners 7 hence the “quinC in Quintron 7 who had all worked together at Vandenberg Air Force Base through the 1960s, Wilhite says.
For 21 years, the company had an operation and maintenance support contract at Vandenberg that eventually grew into designing and building equipment for the Space Launch Complexes that dotted the base and for aircraft testing at Edwards Air Force Base.
About 1980, the company designed its first digital switches for communication systems it dubbed DICES, for Digital Integrated Communications Electronics Systems, which are now in their fourth generation 7 indicated by the “IVC in DICES IV.
In 1990, Quintron started a new division designing and producing facility access control systems for intelligence agencies in Washington, D.C.
Among the latest of that division/s products is an automated security badge kiosk for the National Security Agency that allows an individual to enter his security information on a touch screen and immediately be issued a security badge.
The system then shares that security information with various areas where the individual is allowed or not allowed access, Wilhite explains as he taps the screen on a kiosk outside Quintron/s testing room.
A third division was subsequently added to design and build telephone switches for companies such as NEC.
About eight years ago, the company was awarded a ,7-million contract to install the network and telephone cable systems for the Santa Maria-Bonita School District.
Now, Quintron does installation work for all of the school districts from Buellton to San Luis Obispo, Wilhite says.
In all, the company employs about 60 people between its Santa Maria headquarters and offices in San Diego and Washington, D.C.
Quintron/s systems have been used in battlefield training for NATO tank commanders, in satellite control centers and flight testing at the Dryden Flight Research Center.
“We/re very much an engineering-oriented company,C Wilhite explains as he walks through a room where units are being assembled. “Rocket launching is our historical and largest single customer base.C
Upgrading Vandenberg
DICES is a voice-communications system that allows simultaneous communication among individuals in various groups. A classic example is the image of NASA mission controllers who all seem to be talking at once.
The DICES system allows those in one group to talk to one another without bleeding over into the communications of another group, then lets an individual talk to someone in another group with the simple touch of a headset button.
Communications from various groups come into one side or another of an individual/s headset, allowing the listener to know who/s talking by which side the voice is on.
It/s all controlled by a simple touch screen panel. Gone are the old-fashioned mechanical switches.
DICES systems cost ,500,000 to ,2 million each, depending upon their application and the options a client wants, such as the number of operating stations and the complexity of the visual displays.
In the last 11 years 7 the period Wilhite has been with the company 7 Quintron has shipped about 20 central switching systems and 50 to 100 operating systems.
The project that won Quintron its Frost & Sullivan award was under subcontract to ITT Corp. to upgrade the old-school electro-mechanical panels used to monitor launch safety at Vandenberg.
“Some literally went back to the /60s,C Wilhite says. “We took the DICES technology, redesigned it to meet their needs, and installed it last year.C
The adaptability of the DICES system led to the award.
“All (of our customers) usually want something a little unique,C Wilhite explains. “We can adapt the system to their specifications.C
It might seem customers would be limited for the products Quintron creates, but the market is relatively large.
In fact, Wilhite just returned from the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association convention in San Diego.
The largest show of its kind in the country, AFCEA West brought government-agency and corporate representatives from around the United States as well as foreign countries to see the latest in communication and security systems.
Wilhite said he established contacts with about 30 potential customers interested in contracts for Quintron products. With the Frost & Sullivan award under its belt, the company likely will have a better chance of winning those contracts.
Mike Hodgson can be reached at 739-2221 or mhodgson@santamariatimes.com.