Arizona Center Spurs Optics Industry Boom

A university institute for the optical sciences has turned Tucson into a haven for startups and new research. TUCSON--In 1981, scientists at IBM were looking for a better way to check whether the surfaces of the company's magnetic tapes were smooth. Dragging a stylus along the tape, the conventional method, threatened to damage the surface. Then IBM optics engineer Bherat Bhushen had a bright idea. Why not look for irregularities by bouncing light off the surface? Bhushen turned for help to James Wyant, a professor in the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. Wyant and a colleague solved IBM's problem by developing a product, an interferometer known as TOPO, which scans surfaces to detect rough spots. Within a few years Wyant had started a company, WYKO - and last year the young company sold $12 million worth of testing equipment. Wyant's success story is one of many cited by officials at the center, whose 25-year history is a technology-transfer dream come true. According to director Robert Shannon, about a dozen companies have spun off from the center in the past two decades, now garnering a collective revenue of about $30 million. The center began as a federally financed project to train badly needed optics scientists and engineers and serve national defense. Now, a generation later, Tucson is prepared to meet the ever-growing demand for optics talent in the computing, electronics, aerospace, and communications industries. "Tucson has become a hotbed of optical activity," confirms J. Richard Vyce, director of program development for Itek Optical Systems, the Lexington, Mass., company that is one of the bigger players in the field. The center's successes in transferring its technology off campus provides clues about what it takes to make such transfers work. One important factor is patience. TUCSON--In the world of optics, Tucson is still the new kid on the block. Its guiding light, the Optical Sciences Center, is only 25 years old, and the companies started by center personnel are even younger. None can compete with such giants as Itek Optical Systems or Kodak. Yet they offer services and products that larger and more established optics companies do not. In fact, it is companies like these that experts say keep large projects on schedule and under budget. "If you are willing to take the time to work with these guys, you can really save the taxpayers a lot of money," says Edward Danielson, an optics engineer at the California Institute of Technology. His group practices what he preaches. As part of the team that developed the main camera for the Hubble Space Telescope, Danielson suddenly found that he needed filters for the wide field planetary camera, the main camera for the space telescope. He knew he could lean on Joe Appels. The Dutch-born Appels had come to Tucson in 1972 to take over the Optical Sciences Center optics shop. Two years later he formed the Tucson Optical Research Corp (TORC). "I had the desire to call my own shots," he recalls. "Then it just grew to the point where it was okay to give up the security of the university." Even with 10 people, all skilled in making optics, TORC can't handle all the work that's available. Yet Appels doesn't want to expand because he senses that 10 people are the most he can manage properly. With $600,000 in annual sales, TORC churns out custom-made optical components, most of them prototypes. "Working with Joe, we were able to pull in the optics [for the space telescope] cost-savings by a factor of seven," says Danielson. Appels proudly shows off the domed lenses that he produced for a Salt Lake City company that makes aircraft simulators. He also builds projector lenses for museum planetaria and helmets that enable helicopter pilots to see behind as well as ahead; they were also designed by an Optical Sciences Center alumnus who has also gone into business for himself. Locally, he does work for Hughes Aircraft and builds instruments to support the telescopes on Kitt Peak; internationally, he makes lenses for leading German optics companies. For the space telescope's rush job, Appels ground and polished 400 filters, then sent them by air to California to be coated. Danielson then sent them back to Tucson, where Appels cemented the filters in place. Within 24 hours they had been fitted into the camera mechanism, on time and at a much lower price than if the coating company had made the filters itself. The next time Danielson visited, he brought candy for the technicians and took everyone out for lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. Companies like TORC sometimes have trouble landing major contracts, says Danielson, because contracting agents seek out the "big names." Even so, he believes that the optics companies in Tucson are invaluable both to science and to industry. Given their eagerness to make prototypes and one-of-a-kind optics, Danielson says, "they really provide a great service to the community." "The major lesson is that it takes time to happen," says Shannon. "It takes time for technology to build up around an institution." Tucson had no optical business when the center was created in 1964; now outside companies account for more optics work than does the center itself. Their products range from high-performance sunglasses and laser printers to optical components for Strategic Defense Initiative research and precision testing equipment. "Between the various small spinoff companies, we bring in substantial revenue to the state," says Robert Breault, another one of the center's success stories. One of the center's first students, Breault has built up a $3 million-a-year business based on work he did for his doctoral degree. Breault's company and WYKO weren't exactly what the U.S. Air Force had in mind when it decided to tackle a shortfall in the field. A study by the Optical Society of America had concluded that the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester could not train sufficient numbers of optics experts, and Aden Meinel, then director of the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory and founder of the nearby Kitt Peak Observatory, was given the job of creating a second center. "With all the astronomers and telescopes of that growing institution, it [Tucson] seemed like the logical place to do it," he recalls. The center started off as two desks in the basement of the university's Steward Observatory. For a long time it grew slowly, first into a storefront in downtown Tucson and later into its own building. In recent years, however, growth has reached 15% annually; two additions have been built, and a third is on the drawing board. But despite its success within an academic institution, the center never veered from its practical orientation. The first faculty were recruited from industry, and its graduate program stressed optical engineering. Its graduates have always commanded high salaries to match their special skills. As the center grew, its founders expanded their horizons beyond serving the field. Their goal was to attract the larger optics companies to Arizona, not merely to feed a discipline that was growing rapidly on both coasts. "You keep that money in town, and that money stays in Tucson," says Breault. "If they leave, then that money is lost." The companies didn't rush into town, but the students weren't anxious to stay. Instead, graduates decided to strike off on their own. Says Meinel, "In the final analysis, there were enough innovative students who wanted to stay that they just started up their own companies in Tucson. And growing from within is really the most solid foundation." Breault was one of the first. While Breault was a struggling young graduate student with a pregnant wife, one of his professors - Roland Shack - dreamed up a way to analyze the optics of the Hubble Space Telescope for stray light. The analytical software Breault developed improved the telescope's potential performance so much that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has since hired Breault to do stray-light analysis for NASA centers across the country. His program can also improve the performance of checkout scanners and medical instruments, letting Breault carve out a niche for himself as a scattered-light expert. After leaving the center in 1979, he set up shop in a former mortuary. The company's 28-employee roster includes several other optical center alumni. In early November, Breault Research Organization (BRO), moved into 3,000 square feet of new office and lab space. With the recent opening of a branch office in Boulder, Colo., Breault is planning further expansion in the United States and in Europe. "A large percentage of people who come to Tucson to go to school really like Tucson and would like to stay," says Mitch Ruda, a 1979 graduate of the center. And he's no exception. His first commercial effort resulted in a new sunglass lens that blocked 100% of the ultraviolet and infrared rays, while enhancing color trueness. Talandic Research, a California aerospace and development company, was so taken by his optics prowess that it opened a research branch in Tucson just to lure him onto its payroll. But students aren't the only contributors to Tucson's optics industry. Many of the center's 45 faculty do outside consulting, and a half-dozen have virtually given up academic life. "We didn't pay our faculty enough," says Shannon. "So they went off to start their own businesses on the side." The laissez-faire of the state, the university, and the center itself creates ample opportunities for nonacademic pursuits. "The university's role has been supportive, but passive," says Arizona professor Roland. "Nobody is telling us what to do; there's no orchestrating." That is important, says Chris Koliopoulos, who helped Wyant start WYKO and who remains an assistant professor at the university. "The faculty do have to have a fair amount of freedom." Shannon believes that successful centers stay healthy by remaining flexible. Some professors wind up taking leaves of absence to see if they can get their new companies off the ground. A few decide to give up moonlighting and return to the academic fold. Others, like Wyant, accept reduced appointments. "After 10 years of being a professor, I was getting bored of certain aspects of university life," Wyant recalls. "This is exciting. There are new problems every day." For the first two years of his company he continued as a full-time faculty member, "burning a lot of midnight oil." Eventually, however, he realized that the company needed to be his primary focus. Even so, he continues to teach one course a year and is adviser to three graduate students, all of whom do their research in the WYKO lab. Despite the long odds against starting a new company, most of the center's spinoffs have been a success. "The basic ingredient was the ability of people to come out quickly with something they can sell," says Koliopoulos. Breault had his stray-light software, for example, and Wyant had his interferometer. Another factor, Koliopoulos adds, is making sure that "the demand is greater than the supply." Although Tucson is hardly the capital of the optics industry, local companies have earned international reputations for the service and products they provide. Advances in optoelectronics provide continued opportunities for these fledgling companies to grow. Even with the proliferation of small companies in Tucson, the atmosphere is still one of cooperation. "I consider all these guys personal friends," says Joe Appels, a former optical technician at the center who left to start Tucson Optical Research Corp (see accompanying story). At the same time the center refers clients to them, it benefits from their presence. For the past four years, WYKO has been an industrial affiliate, contributing $9,000 a year to the center. WYKO fellowships support students, and the company sells its equipment to the center at bargain prices. Being close to a university is very important for a high-technology company, says Wyant. "We're a company because of the university, and we're in Tucson only because of the university."

Arizona Center Spurs Optics Industry Boom

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of