SpecTIR ready to add staff as private-sector sales rise

Spectral Technology and Innovative Research spent a decade creating technology used by intelligence and Department of Defense teams.

About a year after executives of the Sparks-based company decided to move into the commercial arena, they think the company known as SpecTIR is ready to get some serious traction in the marketplace.

SpecTIR last week won approval of the Nevada Commission on Economic Development for tax incentives for an expansion program.

The company plans to invest about $900,000 in the expansion while hiring six employees at an average salary of about $35,600 each, it said in its application for the incentives.

SpecTIR currently employs about 15 people in Sparks and another four at a recently opened office at Easton,Md., said Conrad Wright, the company's director of operations.

Founded in 1993, the company specializes in hyperspectral systems instruments that can see a far greater array of light than the human eye.

Wright explains: From aircraft, the SpecTIR system gathers information essentially, takes a picture of a forest.

It sees individual trees, to be sure, but the data is so fine-tuned that it identifies the type of individual trees and provides information about their health.

That kind of fine-tuned data interests exploration companies in the mining and oil and gas industries,where even minor shifts in the spectrum of light reflected from a surface can provide evidence of significant deposits.

Initially, the technology interested the CIA and Defense Department, which also likes to get finely calibrated information about stuff that's on the ground.

After 10 years of working with federal agencies to develop the technology, SpecTIR's executive team began looking for private-sector contracts.

Executives believe that only four organizations worldwide handle similar work.

The company completed about a dozen contracts and posted revenues of about $1.5 million in its last year,Wright says.

It's well past those numbers in 2005.

"Our customer base is starting to grow quite quickly,"Wright says.

The company doesn't expect, however, to be able to move quickly to add its six new staff members.

"These are amazingly talented and highly trained individuals,"Wright says."We'll be recruiting across the country."

SpecTIR has been seeking, for instance, a chief systems engineer.

The preferred qualifications? A doctorate in a field such as optics along with at least 10 years experience in development of airborne imaging systems.