Background
••
I was born in New Orleans and raised in Slidell,
Louisiana. A great influence in my life, my father,
was with UDT4 (Underwater Demolition Team 4) in
the World War II and was in the assault at Guam,
Landing at Leyte, and Okinawa Operations. Another
influence, my brother, joined the Navy in 1963
and became a Navy Diver. After leaving the Navy
he went to work at Taylor Diving.
••
Once I graduated High school I tried to join the
Military service but was rejected because I had
lost vision in my right eye at the age of 12.
I started Electronics school and just before graduating
got my first real job in the "Taylor Navy".
Taylor Diving and Salvage in Belle Chasse Louisiana
was run by many retired Navy Divers and Master
Divers. My brother was an Ex Navy Diver and got
a job with them in 1967.
•I
started in 1969 and in a few months started working
for Drew Michel in the electronics lab and built
the electronics department from 2 technicians
to 52 technicians and engineers, when I left in
1981. During that time we designed and built much
of the equipment used in Diving and Saturation
Diving and spent a great deal of time offshore
in the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
In the last few years at Taylor we bought many
RCV-225s from Hydro Products and one RCV-150.
After seeing that technology in action I was hooked.
We started designing and building our own ROV.
After leaving Taylor I started working for a Diving
supply company building an ROV called Orca. In
just 3 months we had a 200 lb ROV with 1/2hp thrusters
and rented it out to fly pipeline in the Gulf
of Mexico. After 3 years I decided to start my
own company, Outland Technology Inc., along with
2 other partners.
••
When we started Outland we only wanted to build
Diver held camera systems. Complete packages where
there was nothing else to buy and didn't have
to have a technician to run them. After one year
Charles Daussin (my partner) and I bought out
our 3rd partner and continued our full time jobs
elsewhere to supplement our income until we could
go full time. I started work with Martin Marietta
in 1986 and worked until 1991 on 2nd shift while
working and building our company during the day.
I learned a lot at Martin Marietta including designing
and maintaining fiber optics systems, robotic
welding systems, security systems, Computer maintenance
and so many other things I can't list them all.
I also completed my Bachelor's Degree in Engineering
at the same time.
•In
1996 we built a 6,000 sq. ft facility in my home
town (Slidell, Louisiana) and moved both families
to Slidell from the Westbank of New Orleans. In
1999 Charles and I looked around at the ROVs that
were out there and saw a gap from the small ROVs
to the middle ROVs. We thought a 30 to 40 lbs
ROV (one man launchable) with plenty of thrust
and special cameras and the ability to add other
equipment would be a good seller. Charles and
I started with building a good camera. Let’s
face it the ROV is an eyeball first. Without good
cameras the rest of the ROV is nothing. We ended
up building a camera with 2 camera modules in
it and the ability to tilt the camera 360 degrees.
We used a .01 lux color 480 line camera and a
.0003 lux 600 line B&W camera. We then started
work on building the ROV around the camera. We
started with the frame and thrusters. Outland
designed all components from the circuit boards
to the pressure housings and assembles them here.
Except thrusters. We ended up using the Tecnadyne
thrusters instead of trying to build a thruster
and gave us more time to design and build the
rest of the ROV. We had a working model at the
UI2000 show in Houston and really impressed many
customers. Of course the price tag made them shy
away but we keep improving the ROV and eventually
got our first orders from the US Navy. They were
so impressed they bought 3 ROVs. Since then they
have bought 4 more and the US army has bought
18 units. Oceaneering has bought 2 and Ashtead
Technology has bought 2. We have sold several
more for a total of 33 ROVs to date.
Outland Tech ROV’s
••
We at Outland have upgraded our ROV and tweaked
it to do many things like a quality digital compass,
gyro for auto heading, downloadable software,
multiable cameras and sensors, grabber, sonar,
metal detectors etc., but our customers all have
their ideas about what they would like in an ROV.
We have limited our depth to 500ft (150 meters)
and limited our range to 500 ft because of many
obstacles. Like voltage drop, pressure and the
size of our company. I know this limits our sales
but focuses on a target audience and gives us
the ability to make the best ROV in our size range.
We have lost several sales because we can't do
a 2500 ft cable. Depth has not been an issue but
range has. At present we do not have plans to
go deeper and longer but we are always looking
at the technology to do it but have been so busy
building ROVs now I don't think we can meet the
demand if we try to build everything our customers
wanted.
••
At present we will stay focused at making our
ROV better but will wait until our sales slow
down to possibly add to our fleet another ROV
that may go deeper and do more. We are always
thinking and talking about it but we think Homeland
security will keep our small ROV business really
busy for the near future.
Outland Technology Inc.
38190 Commercial Ct.
Slidell, Louisiana, USA 70458
Ph 985-847-1104
Fx 985-847-1106
www.outlandtech.com
Last featured interviews:
<
Back to Current Interview
|
