Oceanic Imaging Consultants
Oceanic Imaging Consultants' software takes data from
side-scan sonar readings of the ocean floor and converts it
to three-dimensional images like this one.
Underwater
is Everything
Things are looking up for
By Jerry Tune
an isle company that looks down
Star-BulletinAs many competitors struggle with cutbacks in federal funding, one small, Manoa-based ocean research company is enjoying its best year. Oceanic Imaging Consultants has found success by diversifying beyond federally funded research projects and into sales of seafloor-mapping software that the company developed. The seven-employee company, which operates from the Manoa Innovation Center, also does mapping projects using its sonar-scanning system.
"We've already doubled what we did last year and I predict we'll do about $1 million (in gross sales) this year," said Thomas B. Reed IV, 36, president of Oceanic Imaging.
Started in 1993, the company did about $250,000 in business the first year, and then grew between 5 and 15 percent each year for the next three years, Reed said.
The biggest break came in 1995 when the company got a five-year, $200,000 contract to do a ocean-floor mapping project for Johns Hopkins University's applied physics laboratory.
And as recently as this year, the company sold about $100,000 worth of its mapping software at a Singapore trade show
Roughly half of the company's business is selling its software package, which takes sonar readings and turns them into a color-coded map of the seafloor.
The data for the maps is gathered by an unmanned "towfish." The vehicle, which looks like a small submarine, is towed behind a boat and scans the ocean floor with its sonar.
ByKen Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Tom Reed, president of Oceanic Imaging Consultants,
shows an image from sonar of the seafloor around Easter
Island. The Honolulu firm does seafloor mapping and sells
software that lets clients make their own maps. Clients
range from the U.S. Navy Special Warfare Group
to private treasure hunters.
The software lets companies or organizations scanning the seafloor view depth data as it is being gathered using desktop workstations or even personal computers running Windows 95 or Windows NT. It can be used, for example, by treasure hunters seeking sunken ships in deep waters, Reed said.The other half of the company's business is providing actual mapping services, working with mainland and international survey companies.
The company has searched shallow waters for mines for the military, and mapped areas for telecommunications companies planning to lay fiber-optic cable. It's also done work for oil and gas companies.
With clients like the U.S. Navy Special Warfare Group, Office of Naval Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the National Geographic Society, Reed's company is building a reputation in the industry.
And Reed said there is no problem being based in Hawaii. In fact, it's a plus because business people love to travel here.
Reed, who was educated at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came to the University of Hawaii in 1982 for his doctoral program and taught in the UH geophysics department for six years before starting Oceanic Imaging.
He said there are "perhaps only a half-dozen significant companies" in the world that do ocean-floor mapping. He envisions continued success because of the increase in shallow-water projects, such as fiber-optic cable laying. Because of potential damage to coral reefs and other concerns, such shallow-water projects require environmental impact statements.
While Oceanic Imaging continues to see business grow, the overall ocean research and development industry in Hawaii is feeling the pinch of federal funding cutbacks.
Craig MacDonald, ocean resources development manager at the state Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism, said that over the last four years the federal government -- especially the military -- has been tightening its belt when it comes to ocean R&D projects.
Oceanic Imaging Consultants
When a 'towfish' like this one is pulled behind a ship, its
sonar can gather data that Oceanic Imaging Consultants'
software then processes to create three-dimension
color maps of the ocean floor.
But MacDonald said international sources of business have shown the greatest increase since 1987 and offer the greatest opportunity for expansion.These include countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand that are involved in environmental research, he said.
Reed agrees. "There is a significant room for expansion in Asian sales and we're already working with opportunities in China, Korea and Japan," he said.
A recent report by the DBEDT on the local ocean research industry found that in 1995, international business accounted for $8 million, or almost 10 percent, of the total $87 million in industry revenues.
Japan provided about 56 percent of this international business but a total of 27 countries have done business with Hawaii ocean R&D companies.
Still, Hawaii ocean R&D revenues have encountered rough seas. "Between 1980 and 1991, revenues in Hawaii's ocean R&D industry grew rapidly from $20 million to $105 million, but beginning in 1992 revenues gradually declined to $87 million in 1995," the state study said.
