Innova once made the delivery boxes that kept your pizza warm. Today, it's developing systems designed to keep the heat off of American military personnel.
Formed in 1994 as the offspring of CJ Laser Corp., Innova has its hands in numerous high-tech applications based on its expertise in lasers and other photonics applications.
Innova President Nilesen Gokay and her husband, Cem Gokay -- the firm's executive vice president -- say their relationship with researchers at the University of Dayton, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and a number of startup companies in the instruments- controls-and electronics industry has powered the firm's growth.
"We have a 7,000 square foot facility, and its going to grow to a 11,000-square-foot facility," says Cem Gokay. "(A year ago), we had five employees; now we have 17."
Innova is working with companies like FLIR Systems, which makes thermal imaging cameras, and Carl Zeiss Inc., which makes advanced optical lenses, to build systems needed for stabilized gimbals -- technology used in the noses of aircraft or ships to home in on military targets. Innova is also working with fellow Daytonian STAN Solutions to add capabilities to a mega-pixel camera STAN is refining for military applications.
Yet, the Gokays describe their main goal during the past two years as working to bring in larger defense companies to the Dayton region -- and lay groundwork for additional training capabilities for the industry.
Those efforts have led to Portland, Ore.,-based FLIR establishing a sales office in the community as a precursor to setting up production operations, says Cem Gokay. He says similar efforts are under way with Zeiss, and that "we hope that by end of 2010 we will be in the manufacturing phase with both."
Sources: Nilesen and Cem Gokay, Innova
Writer: Gene Monteith