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Technology for Fighter Jets and the Space Station

Nancy Crews formed St. Petersburg-based Custom Manufacturing & Engineering as a spinoff of Lockheed Martin.

There's nothing in the name of this high-tech company or its space-related products that would indicate a woman owns it. Yet Nancy Crews puts her personal seal of approval on technology that defends our nation and helps the space station operate.

St. Petersburg-based Custom Manufacturing & Engineering performs research and development, prototyping and manufacturing of technology for the aerospace, defense, energy, environmental and telecommunications industries. Products include a ³smart" power electronics system for vehicles and shelters and helicopter temperature sensor harnesses for the U.S. Army; an electronic component for the U.S. Air Force's F-15 and F-16 jets; and space-flight fracture critical components for the International Space Station, as a subcontract to Boeing.

Heady stuff for a ³woman's touch?" ³I don't find it difficult," Crews says. ³I'm a scientist by training. My background lends itself to technology."

Prior to founding CME in early 1997, Crews applied her expertise at Lockheed Martin. ³This company is a spinoff from Lockheed Martin," says Crews, CME's president. ³We were part of the defense conversion initiatives at the old Dept. of Energy plant that is now the Young-Rainey STAR Center. Ninety-plus percent of our work comes from the government or prime contractors like Lockheed."

The company started with three ³displaced" defense workers and has grown to 95 employees. In 1999 CME outgrew its space at the STAR Center and relocated into a 30,000-square-foot facility in Joe's Creek Industrial Park in St. Petersburg.

More Defense
Another woman-owned small disadvantaged business in Clearwater started eight years ago, believe it or not, so that the high-tech firm's founder could spend more quality time with her son. EEI/Mod-Tech Industries, with 18 employees and annual revenues of $3 million, manufactures circuit card assemblies and provides other manufacturing support services for defense contractors. ³I've been in the technical field for 27 years," says Sue Englander, EEI's president. ³I was working all day and had meetings all night," Englander says of her career prior to forming her own company. ³It wasn't a flexible situation. My son was a pre-teen and I didn't want him to be alone."

Entrepreneurialism suits her just fine. ³It does give freedom," says Englander. That freedom has taken Englander's company to providing services to defense contractors Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Pall Aerospace.

What has been Englander's main challenge? ³Being taken seriously," she says. ³But I've overcome that. What I like best is creating a work environment I can be proud of and people enjoy working in, all the while being a viable, profitable company."

Member Services Made Easy Jeeni Criscenzo, president and CEO of LocalO Inc. in Tampa, has had plenty of experience helping associations operate efficiently. She has served on the board of directors of several and has developed web sites for many more. What sets Criscenzo's company apart is a good idea for the industry. ³I was aware of the problems and needs of associations," Criscenzo says. ³Even though I was creating data-driven Web sites for them, their data wasn't being maintained. The Internet was just another thing on their plate to do."

That's when Criscenzo developed a concept to merge an association's many databases into a single-source software system, called EasyMgr. The first installation of the software will occur this summer.

With 140,000 associations established across the nation and ³a thousand new associations forming every month," says Criscenzo, ³we have a huge market."

The company's product and business plan had enough appeal to land LocalO in one of the few coveted spaces in Tampa's newly formed TechVillage. ³It's a great coup to be selected for TechVillage and to be a woman," says Criscenzo.

TBTF Grows
The Tampa Bay Technology Forum, an association formed two years ago for executives of Tampa Bay area technology firms to network and give back to the community, has hired Michelle Bauer as executive director. In her position, Bauer will be responsible for day-to-day administrative affairs of the association.

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