For Software Modeling Firm, Seeing Is Believing

Signal, Jul 2005 by Robinson, Michael A

An ambitious company president pushes to double his firm's U.S. federal business.

If his eyesight had not failed him, Scott Dixon Smith might never have embarked on a career in technology, let alone one supplying visualization software to corporations and federal agencies. In fact, even before he entered college on a tennis scholarship, Smith already had charted a completely different course.

Politics was his passion and his first choice in professions. That is one of the reasons he decided to major in political science at Westminster College, a private liberal arts college in Fulton, Missouri. The school is about half an hour from the Missouri capital of Jefferson City, the center of the state's political life. More importantly, having grown up just a couple of hours east in Bellville, Illinois, Smith was all too familiar with Westminster's unique role in U.S. political history.

Some of the greatest thinkers and political leaders of the late 20th century spoke at Westminster. Perhaps none had as dramatic an impact as Winston S. Churchill, who delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" address there in 1946 that warned of the perils of communist totalitarianism descending over postwar Europe.

But it was while he was on the tennis court that the idea his life might be taking a major detour began to form for Smith. After playing on the Westminster team for two years, Smith found his game starting to slip. Despite what his coach said, Smith was not just hot-dogging aroundhe could not focus accurately on the ball.

With his vision becoming increasingly blurred, Smith went to a doctor and was diagnosed with a genetic visual disease known as retinitis pigmentosa. The condition is marked by a progressive degeneration of the retina that causes a wide range of visual problems such as night blindness or loss of peripheral vision and often leads to total blindness.

Today, the legally blind Smith is a leader in the field of simulation software that helps large organizations improve their operations. He serves as president of the U.S. subsidiary of the Lanner Group Incorporated, a British technology concern, and is determined to increase the size of the company's business with U.S. defense and civilian agencies.

The 45-year-old Smith is polite and soft-spoken but appears to be a hard-charging executive; he says he learned long ago how to get by on five hours of sleep a day-or less. He credits his visual impairment for his career path and for at least part of his determination to succeed. "It has probably driven me to go as fast as I can and to appreciate all that 1 can each and every day because I know that tomorrow is never promised," Smith says from the company's Houston headquarters. "I have to make the best of what I can, and that's driven me.

"When I was leaving college, I asked myself did I really want to go on from there [into politics] or did I want to get into the business world? And I realized that going into the business world was really the thing for me in trying to make a name for myself, not knowing how soon I was going to lose my vision completely or the path that it would take. I felt that I needed to get started right away.

"Now, it [the condition] has gotten to the point where I've got both whiteout and blackout, and shades of gray and I've got tunnel vision. It's like I'm looking into small binoculars, and you could say it's kind of kept me focused," he relates.

In joining Lanner in May 2003, Smith says he was attracted to the small company because he believed it was at least a year ahead of its competition in the rapidly evolving field of business process management software tools that allow large organizations to simulate a wide array of input and output variables. These could include personnel, supplies or manufacturing techniques that can predict outcomes based on static or dynamic models. For instance, an auto company using Witness, Lanner's main product, can color code various machines to show where there is a blockage in the system or to reveal a breakdown.

Taking that one step further, users can add on three-dimensional capabilities for an even more accurate simulation of the production process that creates a virtual reality tour on the computer screen. Lanner says Witness allows customers to produce visually appealing, accurate and graphics-rich reports that greatly aid decision making about a wide range of customer projects.

This capability helps explain how Smith closed a deal in early May to provide an enterprisewide licensing agreement for Witness with Ford Motor Company. Thus, employees of Ford and its subsidiaries around the globe will have access to Lanner's simulation software for use in areas such as stamping plants, engine shops, tool and die, fabrication, design and assembly-line management.

Smith says Witness is playing an integral role in the U.S. Army's effort to refurbish more than 1,200 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Officials say this is one of the larger projects ever undertaken by the Army's Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.