Homeland security grants go to area firms: Titan opens door to 10 years of FAA Work; deal could climb to $200M

San Diego Business Journal, July 28, 2003 by Brad Graves

San Diego's Center for the Commercialization of Advanced Technology has made more grants for homeland security technology. The Pentagon-funded center provides cash or market research services--and sometimes both.

The local winners:

* Quantum Magnetics of San Diego, which has worked in the airline security niche, received $75,000 to test a prototype scanner that detects explosives in a person's shoes. There is no need for the passenger to remove his or her shoes.

* Inventis, Inc. of Poway received a market study for technology to detect biological warfare agents.

* Parallax Biosystems, Inc. of San Diego received $75,000 and a market study to develop technology to detect biological agents.

* SoftMax, Inc. of San Diego received $75,000 and a market study for software that screens and classifies spectroscopic data. The data can come from chemical or biological sources.

* Pacific Microwave Research of Vista received a market study for a video transmitter that connects first responders with a command post.

* Crossflo Systems of Encinitas received $37,500 and a market study to help it design data transfer technology for !aw enforcement agencies.

* Parity Computing of San Diego received a market study to help it develop software.

Plying the Skies: san Diego-based Titan Corp. announced July 22 it is one of four contractors that will compete for a variety of engineering projects at the Federal Aviation Administration over the next 10 years.

Titan could gain up to $200 million from the deal.

Titan trades on the New York Stock Exchange as TTN.

Spawar Work: The Information Technology side of the house at Northrop Grumman Corp. has announced a new contract for advanced data communications work from Space and Naval Warfare (Spawar) Systems Center, San Diego. The contract promises $3 million during the base year. Four option years could make the deal worth as much as $17 million. Subcontractors include Intelligent Reasoning Systems of Oceanside and the following San Diego companies: Koam Engineering Systems, Pacific Science & Engineering, Polexis, Ram Laboratories, and Science Applications International Corp.

A Drone Debut: Northrop Grumman rolls out the first production model of its Global Hawk robotic spy plane Aug. 1 in Palmdale. The project is based in San Diego.

Send high-tech news to Brad Graves via fax at (858) 571-3628 or via e-mail at bgraves@sdbj.com. Call him at (858) 277-6359, Ext. 115.