Technical credentials earned in the aerospace industry together with a keen awareness of how to apply those capabilities to other industries and community services have enabled a small engineering company to prosper over the last half century. Duane McRuer and Irving Ashkenas, noted authors in the field of aircraft dynamics and control, left Northrop and founded Systems Technology, Inc. (STI) in 1957. While company employment never exceeded about 50 employees (in the 70’s), it has established an enviable reputation and serves a variety of customers. The peak staff size on any one project amounts to about six or eight persons.

In a presentation to the AIAA L. A. Section Enterprise Chapter on March 20, 2007, Wade Allen, President of STI, described the company’s sales profile, philosophy, services and product lines, marketing techniques, and some of the features of employee ownership.

R&D contracts to government and industry amount to about 57% of current STI sales. Simulator products account for about 36% of sales. Legal contracts to produce expert witness testimony in trials contribute about 7% of sales. Legal contracts produce the highest percentage profit margins, followed by simulator products. R&D contracts with industry are next, and lastly, the lowest percentage is earned on government contracts. Despite their low ranking in profits, government contracts are the greatest source of new products to promote the long-term stability and growth of the company Average sales per employee are about $185,000 annually. The company currently employs 28 people.

The company philosophy on pursuing business is to continue to work in its areas of expertise while developing multiple related engineering applications and products to avoid the risks which hobble single-application one-product enterprises. Skilled judgment is needed to distinguish between realistic and non-realistic opportunities. Discipline is needed to avoid pursuing non-realistic opportunities and properly allocating resources among market research, engineering research and development, production, and marketing.

Building on a foundation in systems engineering and aircraft dynamics and control laid by McRuer and Ashkenas, STI has extended its reach onto other vehicles systems and broader applications, including man-machine interaction and human factors. As a result, contracts in the automotive and marine markets, and in the fields of health and medicine, have materialized. Major aerospace and automotive firms continue to tap the unique expertise of STI via consulting contracts.

R&D programs in aerospace dynamics have involved a variety of air vehicle systems, including the Space Shuttle, several launch vehicles, airlift aircraft, rotorcraft and VSTOL’s, remotely piloted unmanned aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, precision-guided parachute airdrops, and man-powered aircraft and prehistoric bird models for movies. Recent government contracts in aerospace have dealt with icing detection systems, flutter suppression, aerial refueling drogues, helicopter autorotation, and autonomous airship station keeping.

Contracts addressing ground vehicles and marine systems include ride and handling modeling systems for an auto racing team, road and terrain characterization, integrated mobility and advanced system propulsion design tool, and a ship motion prediction system for aircraft carriers.

Work for the national Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control has focused on simulators for a variety of purposes: training student drivers, testing driver capabilities, dealing with impaired driver cognition, and detecting driver impairments including sleepiness.

Noteworthy consulting business has included forensics in the courtroom to deal with questions of vehicle dynamics during accidents and of highway safety, and in the oil industry, support in the design of advanced automated oil drilling equipment and in the development of oil rig simulators.

While refining their simulation expertise for four decades, STI has gradually generated logos and trademarks to gain increasing customer familiarity in the markets they serve. Their interactive auto driving simulators are marketed under the STISIM trademark, and the parachuting maneuvering simulator trademark is known as ParaSim. Other trade marks include VDANL for simulating vehicle dynamics and tire simulation, Fused Reality to fuse virtual reality and physical environments, and Program CC for computer-aided control system design and analysis. These simulators (ions) are used in training, evaluation, and safety research in a variety of ways. See the AIAA Enterprise Network home page, Speaker Archives, for further details.

As is typical of aerospace engineering firms, STI engages in the preparation of proposals and direct contacts. Exhibits at trade shows and an Internet web site are used for networking. Networking also includes the preparation and presentation of papers at technical conferences and membership in technical committees. User group meetings are organized periodically, both in this country and abroad, to evaluate company products through feedback not available elsewhere and to obtain suggestions for new products and/or features to improve existing products.

The company relies upon the DELTEC accounting system for financial records, and considers it to be quite helpful in separating government allowable expenses from non-allowables. Ownership of the company is shared among the employees under the provisions of the ERISA Act. The maximum ownership by any individual is 10%. When a person leaves the company, the company has up to five years to pay for the value of their ownership. Challenging work assignments, together with year-end bonuses, foster a sense of fulfillment among employees.