Rocket Science for All
by Melissa Wells

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Palm Harbor's Dynacs Engineering
brings space technology applications
down to earth.

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Ramen P. Singh, president and CEO of Palm Harbor-based Dynacs Engineering Company Inc., is navigating his high-tech firm to impressive rates of growth at warp speed. by:Robin Donina Serne

April 12, 1961, marks the first human flight into space. Twenty years later on that date the space shuttle Columbia was launched on its initial mission. Now, four decades later, there is a history of 100 space shuttle flights carrying astronauts, satellites and scientific experiments into orbit.

One of the behind-the-scenes players in these space treks has been engineer Ramen P. Singh, who has dedicated his career to rocket science. Little did he suspect, however, that his expertise at creating technology that allows us to explore the galaxy would also impact the little pleasures in life. The virtual imaging his company created for NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration) is now being used to add color to black-and-white film, bringing, for instance, a blush to the cheeks of the pretty genie in reruns of I Dream of Jeannie.

"I never could have imagined that I'd be colorizing film," says Singh, president and chief executive officer of Palm Harbor-based Dynacs Engineering Company Inc., reflecting on the range of his company's services.

Singh started his career in the '70s with Honeywell Inc. in Clearwater. "I was involved in their space program," he says. "In 1985 I wanted to see if I was good enough to go out on my own."

Recruiting two of his colleagues Ð Dick Vandervort and Buddy Schubele Ð from Honeywell, Singh set up shop in 1,000 square feet of office space in Palm Harbor. "We came up with our name from dynamics and control of satellite systems," he says, which describes the initial services of Dynacs. "Now we do many other things."

In the beginning, the firm specialized as a research and development think tank for NASA, Harris Corp., Allied Bendix Aerospace, Sperry Rand Corp., Rockwell International Corp., Honeywell, Boeing Aerospace and the European Space Agency.

As is common in technology, Singh and his colleagues collaborated with university researchers. "We worked with professors on research projects for NASA," says Singh. "Our academic connection helped a lot. They recommended the managers we hired in the beginning. These managers are still with us."

Dr. Peter Likins, president at the University of Arizona, and Dr. Robert Skelton, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, serve on the firm's advisory council.

The company's services have grown to include development and application of new technologies that maximize the efficiency and safety of the space shuttles and international space station. The firm operates the Kennedy Space Center's communications laboratories and is responsible for the design, construction, installation, calibration and testing of special launch structures and mechanical launch support system.

Over the years, Dynacs' headquarters has grown to 12,500 square feet in a three-story, 30,000-square-foot Palm Harbor office building, of which it is part owner. The company has nine additional locations in the U.S. (Houston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Denver, Albuquerque, Seattle, Pasadena, Calif., Greenbelt, Md., and Cocoa Beach) and offices in Torino, Italy, Patna and Bangalore, India, and Batam, Indonesia. The company's annual sales are $75 million and the staff has grown to 800 worldwide.

Growth by contract
One Honeywell recruit is Judy Hess, the firm's manager of administration and human resources. Hess started with Dynacs five years ago, when the firm had 120 people. "Within a year our staff grew to 700 people," she says, referring to two major contracts signed with NASA in Cleveland and Houston. "That kind of growth is difficult but exciting. Everyone does interesting things from work on the shuttle to developing the space station and the research that will take place on the space station."

Hess has been instrumental in helping Dynacs amalgamate large groups of employees. "We've hired a group of 220 people en masse," she explains. "We had another group of 300 in Cleveland (NASA's Glenn Research Center). Our employees are well-educated and hard-working individuals. They've worked together for 20 years on the space program. We get the joy of knowing an entire population of an area."

"Our engineers and scientists are this company's assets," Singh says. "Attracting the top people [in the industry] is not about the money. They like what they're doing and they won't leave the space centers. We entice them with the technology we're advancing."

These advancements by the Dynacs team have earned the company a series of honors over the years. Plaques and statues received as awards adorn the Dynacs headquarters. Singh is particularly proud to display the Goldin-Stokes award, which the firm received from NASA last year. It is the agency's highest honor for contractors participating in its mentor-protege program. "We're very customer oriented and it shows in the awards we've received," he says.

Dynacs is the only firm to receive NASA's Small Disadvantaged Business Contractor of the Year award twice, in 1997 and 1999. "This is awarded to a company that has exhibited the most outstanding services," says Ralph Thomas, NASA's associate administrator in Washington, D.C. "We have thousands of vendors competing at our 10 field centers. One is nominated from each center. The best of the best wins this award. To be singled as the top vendor for two years is quite an honor."

Among Thomas's responsibilities is the implementation of programs to assist small businesses to compete for NASA contracts. "This is not a social welfare program," Thomas says. "NASA is looking for the best companies to help us perform our technical mission. Companies like Boeing, Lockheed and Raytheon have the financial resources to get in front of the right people at NASA to demonstrate their skills. My job is to develop initiatives to help small minority companies show their capabilities."

Dynacs saves a launch
Without Dynacs, a launch would have been delayed in May 2000. "We were sending up Atlantis and noticed mechanical problems as the shuttle stood in the vertical position," says Thomas. "Normally, we lay the shuttle down, move it into the cargo bay and make repairs. Delays like this cost substantial money. Dynacs had been working on technology that allowed us to make the mechanical repairs right on the launching pad. As a result, the launch was able to go on time, saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars. That was our top story for 2000."

Another success story in the NASA/Dynacs relationship is the small business's venture into commercialization of technology. "We encourage commercialization of NASA technology," Thomas says. "Dynacs is one of the first companies to help us teach small businesses how to do this. The colorization of film is one of the examples they've used."

The film colorization, a unique technology that Dynacs created for NASA, is being used to convert into color black-and-white films shot during the last 100 years. "This is very different from what Turner has done," says Ravi Venugopal, the firm's chief technical officer and senior vice president of media. "They use an analog process. We use a digital format and choose from a 16-million-color palette. The results are indistinguishable from original color film."

Clients include Sony Pictures & Television, Disney and Time Warner/New Line. "We colorized the first 30 episodes of I Dream of Jeannie for Columbia Pictures," Venugopal says.

Other projects for studios include 65 episodes of Rin Tin Tin, The Absent-Minded Professor, Route 66 and Perry Mason episodes.

Dynacs bought the Sherman-Grinsberg film library that contains 25 million feet of archived film. "That's approximately 250,000 minutes of footage," says Venugopal. "It includes newsreels that ran before [featured] movies dating from 1897 to 1968. We're in the process of producing historical colorized documentaries for television. We just finished World War II: It Happened in Color and are producing 39 episodes of a series called Battlefront, which looks at famous battles in that period."

The film library is so extensive that the Battlefront series shows the battles from both sides. "These are 30-minute shows," explains Venugopal. "The History Channel is a potential client. We've already sold them to the BBC and other European clients."

The European market is interested in Dynacs colorized films because "Europe and Germany can't show anything in black and white on television," Singh says, adding that Dynacs owns the footage of "the crash of the Hindenburg, one of the most famous newsreels." Dynacs facilities dedicated to this venture include an office in Hollywood with a staff of 15, and two offices in India employing 400 people.

Another more recent venture into commercializing space technology impacts the trucking industry. "We've been involved in design of the next generation of supersonic transport," says Bernie Schubele, the firm's senior vice president of business.

Saving gasoline
That technology has helped Seattle-based PACCAR (an international commercial vehicle manufacturer whose truck nameplates include Kenworth, Peterbilt, DAF and Foden) address problems associated with designing more aerodynamic vehicles. "We took our NASA high-tech, super-duper software, analyzed their truck and generated color pictures of air flows," Schubele says. "They were wowed. We discovered that the airflow on the truck doors at high speeds was creating lift. That was the start of a relationship that has continued and NASA-developed technologies have now become an integral part of the design of these trucks."

The "Porsches of the trucking industry" are not only more aerodynamic, but "they have improved fuel efficiency," says Schubele. "Truckers drive about 200,000 miles a year and average six miles per gallon. With less drag, vehicles now average eight-and-a-half miles per gallon. That's a lot of fuel and dollar savings for drivers."

This ability to commercialize technology has helped Singh attract a new strategic partner for future growth. "Financing is always a challenge for small businesses," he says. "There aren't too many techie people in Palm Harbor. This isn't Palo Alto. And there are no financiers walking and knocking at your door."

Strategic partnership
While there may be a limited quantity of high-tech venture capitalists in the Tampa Bay area, Singh found one that will invest for a 10-percent ownership in Dynacs. Tampa-based high-tech financier J. Patrick Michaels, through his new company Atlantic American Capital Advisors LLC, is now a strategic partner with Dynacs. With the infusion of capital and Atlantic American's active role in the business, Dynacs is on track to double in size next year. It plans to increase revenues to $500 million over the next three to five years.

All this is a dream come true for Singh, who last year went through a failed initial public offering. "The market timing was bad," says Robert Moreyra, managing director at Atlantic American Capital Advisors. "A failed IPO costs a lot of money and many companies evaporate in this setting. But Dynacs came out the other side a viable company.

"That's because it's focused on the bottom line," Moreyra adds. "There's not a lot of profit in government work and yet Dynacs has grown 50 to 100 percent over the last five years on work that isn't profitable. The company knows how to contain costs, and we like the management team at Dynacs. We'll let them leverage off of our resources." Atlantic American now has a seat on the Dynacs board, of course. "This is not passive money," says Moreyra. "This will be an active partnership. We'll help Dynacs grow through mergers and acquisitions."

Atlantic American is identifying and initiating contact with targeted firms to acquire, and Dynacs "is involved with due diligence and will handle the mergers," Moreyra says. "They're used to merging large companies, as evidenced by the awards they've won for transitioning contracts for NASA [which has involved acquiring hundreds of employees at space centers]. They're good integrators."

While Dynacs will be integrating new companies, it will also pursue additional opportunities for commercializing technology with companies at the virtual accelerator operating at the University of Pennsylvania's University City Science Center, with which Michaels has a long-standing affiliation. "Dynacs will be the CTO [chief technology officer] for their incubator," says Moreyra. "They dovetail perfectly. We make the investment in Dynacs and they commit to let us grow the firm and be our brain trust for the commercialization of new technology."

Commercial possibilities
Meanwhile, the partners are approaching major defense contractors such as Boeing Aerospace and Lockheed Martin Corp. to identify technologies developed by the larger firms that are best suited for commercialization. "It takes an act of God to commercialize technology in a company like Boeing," Singh says. "Our environment is much more nimble."

Dynacs' offshore operations hold a special appeal for Atlantic American. "Ramen and his management team are Indian," says Moreyra. "They understand the culture and have long-standing relationships in India. They're successfully operating their facilities in India, and Dynacs has the lowest turnover rate among IT facilities in India. We'll send our commercialization business offshore to significantly reduce development costs."

The partners are deciding what to do with the film colorization business. "We'll grow and sell the digital business," Moreyra says. "Just how we do that is under analysis. But we're not selling the overseas facilities. We'll keep those operations for software development and business process outsourcing such as financial, accounting and back office support work."

As part of the agreement with Dynacs, Atlantic American "has an option for another piece of the business to match the original investment," says Moreyra. In the meantime, the soft-spoken Singh is deftly ordering company growth at warp speed. "Although there are moments when I wonder why I did this," says Singh, "I have no regrets for listening to my entrepreneurial voice."