Stan Solutions has made a big impression on military
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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This tethered balloon flew over the STAN Solutions office on Monument Ave. in Dayton while transmitting live video to a press conference inside the office. STAN Solutions unveiled several products on Tuesday, October 14 that is has been developing with the U.S. Army and Air Force since 2002. Staff photo by Ty Greenlees
Stan Solutions Lead Field Service Technician Robert King (above) shows a handheld transceiver that is receiving a live video feed from a tethered balloon (right) over the company office on Monument Avenue in Dayton.
Staff photos by Ty GreenleesDAYTON — A grizzled military officer once gave representatives of Stan Solutions LLC 15 minutes to convince him that the company's sensing products worked well enough to merit his attention.
The representatives needed only a few seconds, though, once the officer saw how the firm's camera monitors captured him tossing his hat and keys onto a table.
"He kind of frowned and said, 'Who are you guys?' " Tony Manuel, Stan Solutions' president, said of that fateful meeting.
That was then. Some seven years later, the Monument Avenue-based company opened its doors Tuesday, Oct. 14, to showcase technology that, until recently, was classified.
The company has put to work in the Iraqi war devices that capture in "real time" video feeds from 250 miles and beyond. The devices capture live video, photographs, maps, medical information and more that give battlefield commanders crucial information when they need it.
"This is almost like you taking your (cordless) telephone that you have in your house and going 250 miles to stay connected," said Manuel, a former Sinclair Community College civil engineering instructor.
Tuesday's demo included a monitor tethered to a balloon floating above the company's offices that gave people inside those offices an aerial view of Monument Avenue.
Today, Stan Solutions' technology covers more than 700 square miles of the Baghdad area, technology "engineered and designed by the people in this room," said Chris Jones, a Stan Solutions engineer.
The company prides itself on what Manuel called a "MacGyver mentality," citing the television character, Angus MacGyver.
"Anything they need, we do," Jones, who worked in Iraq himself, said of U.S. troops.
Putting employees to work in Iraq and Dayton, the company said it is also pioneering solar power systems, extra-sensitive security cameras and devices that pinpoint the origin of small arms fire. Company principals even talk of forming a science-and-technology school with Dayton City Schools.
Stan Solutions today has 30 employees, having created 16 of those jobs in the last 21 months. Six of those employees are serving in Iraq today.
Stan Solutions
Based: 714 E. Monument Ave., Dayton. Also, a manufacturing site at 8641 Washington Church Road, Miami Twp.
Focus: Wireless voice, video and data systems.
Revenue: About $6 million in 2007. Up from "negative" equity in 2001.
Who's Stan?: Stanley Harriman, a Special Forces officer who died in Afghanistan in 2002.
Source: Stan Solutions
