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NASA funding local research, helping create jobs

Small-business grants encourage research with commercial potential.

NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck (left) and Cornerstone Research Group President and CEO Patrick J. Hood discuss technologies the company had developed, such as a self healing composite material that Hood is holding.

Ty greenlees/Chief Photogrpaher NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck (left) and Cornerstone Research Group President and CEO Patrick J. Hood discuss technologies the company had developed, such as a self healing composite material that Hood is holding.

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By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer 8:39 PM Wednesday, February 22, 2012

BEAVERCREEK TWP., Greene County — NASA officials on Wednesday promoted how government can partner with small business to help create jobs through science and technology by visiting a local company that has received nearly $5 million in contracts with the space agency.

Cornerstone Research Group has received 18 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program contracts with NASA since 2000. The contracts involved projects such as creating inflatable structures for radio frequency antennas and healable composites for future space vehicles.

“We do invest in technology for NASA’s purposes, but also that money grows the innovation economy in the U.S., and CRG is an example of that,” said Mason Peck, NASA’s chief technologist.

NASA spent $120 million in fiscal 2012 on SBIR awards to several hundred businesses, Peck said. The program encourages small businesses to engage in federal research and development with the potential for commercialization.

CRG’s contracts with NASA have totaled more than $4.8 million, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The company and its three commercial spinoffs have 80 employees and annual revenues of more than $10 million, said Patrick Hood, president and chief executive. CRG specializes in non-metallic materials, systems design and development, and manufacturing process development.

“There aren’t very many organizations that are willing to fund the innovation, the research that will demonstrate something that most people don’t believe is even possible,” Hood said. “NASA actually provides some of that critical foundational support that is critical that you would never be able to find anywhere else.”

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