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August 17. 2012 9:52PM
CEO Peter Antoinette gives U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Small Business Administration chief Karen Mills, at right, a tour Nanocomp Technologies in Merrimack on Friday. The company specializes in manufacturing the nanofiber sheets it pioneered. (Simon Rios/Union Leader Correspondent)
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CEO Peter Antoinette gives U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Small Business Administration chief Karen Mills, at right, a tour Nanocomp Technologies in Merrimack on Friday. The company specializes in manufacturing the nanofiber sheets it pioneered. (Simon Rios/Union Leader Correspondent)
MERRIMACK — U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Small Business Administration chief Karen Mills on Friday toured the facility of Nanocomp Technologies, a company specializing in the nanofiber sheets it pioneered.
“Without capital, a small company or any company is toast,” said the company's CEO Peter Antoinette, who founded the company along with the inventor of nanofiber, David Lashmore. The SBA “has been a supremely great pump-primer in the early stages.”
Under the SBA's Small Business Innovation Research Program — which requires government agencies to allocate 2.5 percent of their research funding to small businesses — the company has received approximately $6 million across several government grants.
The nanofiber is used in the production of wiring, shielding and armor. Antoinette said a typical 787 jumbo jet carries 80,000 pounds of copper-based wiring. With the substitution of nanofiber wires, he said a 50 percent reduction is possible.
“Commercial aircraft companies consider 50 pounds to be significant, and we're talking orders of magnitude more than that,” Antoinette said.
The raw material used is alcohol — a common thread with their neighbor just up the road, Anheuser-Busch. Antoinette said instead of relying on overseas copper mining, nanofibers draw on a domestic resource without the environmental impact of strip mining.
Antoinette went so far as to say there would be no biotech industry in the United States without seed money from programs like the Small Business Innovation Research Program.
“This is U.S.A. competitiveness,” he said. “You have to be able to give companies some leg up.”
Without federal funding, Antoinette said the company would not be able to compete with state-funded enterprises in China and Russia.
“It's naive to think that other countries aren't just priming the companies — they are the companies,” he said. “So a 60-person company can get squished without some help.”
Founded in 2004, Nanocomp began with two people in Lebanon and grew to 60 employees and 41,000 square feet. The Merrimack plant has another 70,000 square feet unfinished — and if all goes as planned, the company will double in size, using the entire factory for the production of nanofibers.
SBA head Karen Mills, who joined Shaheen on a tour of three southern New Hampshire companies, said the funding is necessary to fill the gap left by the market.
“This is the kind of advanced materials technology that is going to create a more competitive America. The market doesn't provide this, entrepreneurs provide it, and you need to seed it with capital.”
“It doesn't create jobs,” she added. “It allows innovation to turn into jobs.”
Under SBIR, government agencies are required to allocate 2.5 percent of their research funding to small businesses.
SBIR funding comes in three phases. First, awards of up to $100,000 support exploration of a project's feasibility. Phase II awards up to $750,000 to expand Phase I results. During Phase III, SBIR funding phases out, and the idea moves into the marketplace.
Antoinette said though the funding is for research, 99 percent of the time the grantor expects a prototype.
Earlier this year, Shaheen was part of a fight in Congress over reauthorizing SBIR. But the Senate Small Business Committee, of which she is a key member, led the way to a bipartisan consensus that extended it for six years.
Asked how the initiative managed to garner Republican support, Shaheen said Congress members “heard from people like Peter, who knew how important the program had been to them.”
Jeff Littlefield is one of the workers. Standing before a 1,000-degree furnace, he said he pours a “secret recipe” into one side of the machine, and out the other come the nanofiber sheets.
“Basically we're manufacturing over here, and we're making the (product) to move on to post-processes,” Littlefield said.
Two of the machines are in operation, with two more expected to come on line shortly.
As workers stood by, Shaheen and Mills peered into the window of the machine, watching the black, smoke-like sheets of nanofiber spin out of its guts.
Mills was impressed. She said this is exactly what the President's advanced manufacturing initiative is aimed at.
“The pilot stages of special advances in manufacturing — materials, manufacturing processes, biotech — and all of those are going to be critical to America's (future).”
“Without capital, a small company or any company is toast,” said the company's CEO Peter Antoinette, who founded the company along with the inventor of nanofiber, David Lashmore. The SBA “has been a supremely great pump-primer in the early stages.”
Under the SBA's Small Business Innovation Research Program — which requires government agencies to allocate 2.5 percent of their research funding to small businesses — the company has received approximately $6 million across several government grants.
The nanofiber is used in the production of wiring, shielding and armor. Antoinette said a typical 787 jumbo jet carries 80,000 pounds of copper-based wiring. With the substitution of nanofiber wires, he said a 50 percent reduction is possible.
“Commercial aircraft companies consider 50 pounds to be significant, and we're talking orders of magnitude more than that,” Antoinette said.
The raw material used is alcohol — a common thread with their neighbor just up the road, Anheuser-Busch. Antoinette said instead of relying on overseas copper mining, nanofibers draw on a domestic resource without the environmental impact of strip mining.
Antoinette went so far as to say there would be no biotech industry in the United States without seed money from programs like the Small Business Innovation Research Program.
“This is U.S.A. competitiveness,” he said. “You have to be able to give companies some leg up.”
Without federal funding, Antoinette said the company would not be able to compete with state-funded enterprises in China and Russia.
“It's naive to think that other countries aren't just priming the companies — they are the companies,” he said. “So a 60-person company can get squished without some help.”
Founded in 2004, Nanocomp began with two people in Lebanon and grew to 60 employees and 41,000 square feet. The Merrimack plant has another 70,000 square feet unfinished — and if all goes as planned, the company will double in size, using the entire factory for the production of nanofibers.
SBA head Karen Mills, who joined Shaheen on a tour of three southern New Hampshire companies, said the funding is necessary to fill the gap left by the market.
“This is the kind of advanced materials technology that is going to create a more competitive America. The market doesn't provide this, entrepreneurs provide it, and you need to seed it with capital.”
“It doesn't create jobs,” she added. “It allows innovation to turn into jobs.”
Under SBIR, government agencies are required to allocate 2.5 percent of their research funding to small businesses.
SBIR funding comes in three phases. First, awards of up to $100,000 support exploration of a project's feasibility. Phase II awards up to $750,000 to expand Phase I results. During Phase III, SBIR funding phases out, and the idea moves into the marketplace.
Antoinette said though the funding is for research, 99 percent of the time the grantor expects a prototype.
Earlier this year, Shaheen was part of a fight in Congress over reauthorizing SBIR. But the Senate Small Business Committee, of which she is a key member, led the way to a bipartisan consensus that extended it for six years.
Asked how the initiative managed to garner Republican support, Shaheen said Congress members “heard from people like Peter, who knew how important the program had been to them.”
Jeff Littlefield is one of the workers. Standing before a 1,000-degree furnace, he said he pours a “secret recipe” into one side of the machine, and out the other come the nanofiber sheets.
“Basically we're manufacturing over here, and we're making the (product) to move on to post-processes,” Littlefield said.
Two of the machines are in operation, with two more expected to come on line shortly.
As workers stood by, Shaheen and Mills peered into the window of the machine, watching the black, smoke-like sheets of nanofiber spin out of its guts.
Mills was impressed. She said this is exactly what the President's advanced manufacturing initiative is aimed at.
“The pilot stages of special advances in manufacturing — materials, manufacturing processes, biotech — and all of those are going to be critical to America's (future).”