Zap! You're successful! - laser weapon simulators used in police and military training

Nation's Business, May, 1988 by Julian Weiss

Zap! You're Successful!

Lasers guns, once toys for teenagers, have grown up to help police and the military in training. By Julian Weiss

You've seen them in television ads and probably marveled at the spectacle of teenages gleefully using them to zap each other. Laser-based weapons simulators are popular - and highly practical, too.

"Police training and military training needn't put the recruits into potential hazards any more," declares Orlando, Fla.-based entrepreneur Bill Schwartz. "With laser devices, training doesn't have to have that element of danger to be effective."

Schwartz was one of the pioneers of laser-based weapons simulators; he has been designing and selling such systems for more than 15 years. He formed his first company, International Laser Systems, in 1968 - going into business for himself at the age of 41, after two decades with Martin Marietta Corporation - and sold it in 1983. He started his second company, Schwartz Electro-Optics, in 1984.

When he was director of laser programs for Martin Marietta in Orlando, Schwartz liked the company but weas stymied by what he still considers the "inflexible" structures of large firms. He believed there were commercial possibilities in lasers, but Martin Marietta and other big companies were interested only in military applications.

International Laser Systems started by making lasers for the military, and then, in the early '70s, got into laser-based weapons training. After Schwartz sold the company, the new owners licensed production of his training system to his new firm.

Schwartz's system originally involved laser devices that fit on customized revolvers; he has since developed devices that fit on rifles and even submachine guns. His client roster includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Miami police department and the U.S. Department of Energy.

By using laser simulation, law-enforcement and security organizations can keep far more accurate records on shooters' scores.

In Schwartz's devices, when the trigger is pulled a sensor on the gun barrel detects the flash of the blank bullet. A laser then fires a half-inch-wide beam. If the laser beam hits a target wearing another Schwartz product - a vest with fiber-optic threads - beepers and flashing lights go off. A combination of one weapon and one vest costs a law-enforcement agency about $3,000.

Schwartz took his new company into a booming field: The market for laser-based weapons training has more than doubled, from $90 million to roughly $200 million, in the four years since Schwartz Electro-Optics opened.

Schwartz's revenues have grown apace, rising from $2 million in 1985 to almost $5 million last year, and his staff has grown to around 65.

Other kinds of laser equipment account for about one third of his sales.

Schwartz is trying to position himself for growth along the nation's high-tech corridors. He now has an office in Boston to identify opportunities in the Strategic Defense Initiative program and to keep in touch with the handful of federal R&D centers where laser-related activity is concentrated. Schwartz Electro-Optics has an SDI contract for laser radar equipment and two contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for outer-space lasers that will be used to sample the upper atmosphere.

New medical technologies employing lasers are in an "emerging" stage, Schwartz says, and his company has started selling lasers to medical research centers. It is by breaking through into these new markets, he believes, that his company will thrive in the 1990s. NB

PHOTO: Bill Schwartz (center) demonstrates his laser simulators: The customized gun releases a laser beam; if the beam hits the laser-sensitive vest, beepers and lights signal the hit.

Julian Weiss is a free-lance writer in the Washington area.