Local Group Wins Federal Conversion Grant : Camarillo: Power-One Corp. is the lead firm in a consortium getting funds in a program to assist in the switch from defense work.
A Camarillo-based consortium was one of 41 groups Friday to receive a highly sought-after federal grant under the initial phase of President Clinton’s pioneering defense conversion program.
Power-One Corp. in Camarillo, the lead firm in a group that also includes Rockwell International in Thousand Oaks, will receive $1.9 million to develop aerocapacitors, small battery-like devices that store electrical power.
The project proposal submitted to the government describes installing aerocapacitors in a wide range of defense and commercial products, from semi-conductors to electronic vehicles.
“If we can make this happen, it will make us much more competitive,” said Dennis Roark, Power-One’s executive vice president of research and development.
About 2,850 groups nationwide applied for the conversion grants, eight of which went to consortiums led by a California company or university.
Power-One has 1,000 employees worldwide, including about 225 at its headquarters and manufacturing plant in Camarillo. The company makes power supplies--mechanisms for converting electricity into another form of electrical energy--for industrial automation equipment, computer technology and medical equipment.
A privately owned company, Power-One was founded 20 years ago by Santa Rosa resident Dick Weisse. Weisse, who has since sold the company to a group of private investors and company managers, made headlines last year when he told police that he was shot and robbed of cocaine and cash in his home.
The six-firm consortium also includes Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Polystor Corp. in San Jose, Aerojet in Rancho Cordova and California Trade and Commerce Agency in Pasadena.
Ventura County Supervisor Maria E. VanderKolk said the federal grant could be a boost to the county’s troubled aerospace industry.
“That’s great,” she said. “We’ve been trying to pursue as much (environmentally) clean, high technology industry as possible, especially since we lost Northrop.”
Charlotte Craven, the mayor of Camarillo, said she also was thrilled to hear of Power-One’s federal grant.
“I’ve seen several defense-related businesses shrinking,” Craven said.
“This is going to be not only an economic boost, but a psychological boost” for Camarillo industry, she said.
The grants are the first installment to be awarded under the Administration’s Technology Reinvestment Program (TRP), which is designed to help America put defense technologies to use for commercial purposes and increase job growth for those displaced by cutbacks in the defense industry.
Ultimately, the government will award $472 million in such grants during this fiscal year.
The aerocapacitor proposal began two to three years ago as a defense-related project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., a Lawrence Livermore researcher said.
The consortium will try to apply the federal laboratory’s research to commercial uses.
Polystor Corp. will use a foam material produced by Aerojet to make the aerocapacitors. Rockwell’s corporate science center will then test Polystor’s aerocapacitors in a variety of defense and commercial uses.
But the bulk of the application will be at Power-One, which will attempt to use the aerocapacitors to make better, smaller and cheaper power supplies.
Matching funds for the project will be provided by the California Trade and Commerce Agency, a state agency that promotes the business.
Clinton has made the defense conversion program a cornerstone of his Administration’s effort to foster new high-tech industries in Southern California and other defense-dependent regions. Some aerospace executives have expressed skepticism that the government can play such a role effectively and that there will be sufficient funds to make a major impact.
The initial grants account for $140 million in matching federal funds. The rest of the awards, amounting to $332 million, will be announced in November, White House officials said.
In total, some $8.5 billion in federal funds were requested, about 18 times more money than is available. Requests came from teams consisting of more than 12,000 companies, universities, federal research labs and state and local governments from all 50 states. About 20% went to economically distressed California.
In Congress, the House has appropriated $575 million in defense funds for the program for the 1994 fiscal year, while the Senate has appropriated $475 million. The final amount will be determined by a joint House-Senate conference committee.
