Page 32: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2005)

32 MTR September 2005 ern Massachusetts businesses, UMass Dartmouth set up two business start-up incubators:

The Advanced Technology Manufacturing Center locat- ed in Fall River and the Quest Center located in New

Bedford.

Both sites provide start-up companies with reasonably priced work space, shared administrative services, and access to innovative technologies and intellectual property associated with UMASS.

It seems that finally, the marine technology business sec- tor is in the process of being defined in business and eco- nomic terms.

Now it's up to the extremely innovative people in the industry to take advantage all that the future holds.

Marine Instrumentation and Equipment, 2004

Subsectors Employment Sales ($m) Establishments

Electronics for marine instruments and platforms 7,621 1,143.5 68

Electronics for marine navigation and communications 3,058 524.8 31

Oceanographic and geophysical measuring instruments 962 151.6 28

Acoustics 442 31 23

Floatation equipment 152 19.8 6

Underwater construction equipment 130 70.9 9

Underwater vehicles 118 22.2 5

Diving and underwater work equipment 11 2.2 2

Underwater telecommunications systems N/A 0.1 2

Remediation equipment N/A N/A 1

Total 12,496 1,996.3 175

Source: THE MARINE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN NEW ENGLAND REPORT: D&B MarketPlace; authors' survey.

Company Profile

Brooke Ocean Technology-USA

Brooke Ocean Technology-USA or BOT-USA is incorporated in the United States and is affiliated with Brook

Ocean Technology, a well known oceanographic firm based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. BOT-USA is the first ten- ant at the Quest Center in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

BOT-USA is a team of engineers and designers who design, fabricate, build, test, and market rugged gear for the oceanographic community. They specialize in launch and recovery systems for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and handling systems for towed instruments.

This winter, BOT-USA partnered with BlueFin Robotics of Cambridge, Mass. to win Phase 1 and Phase 2 Small

Business Innovation Research grants (SBIR) to design and build a prototype launch and recovery system for the

Bluefin-12 AUV. The $2 million contract was awarded in mid-August. The task is to design, manufacture, and test an automatic launch and retrieval system for a variety of underwater vehicles. Roger Race, General Manager of BOT -USA stated, "We are all very pleased with this award and we are really looking forward to delivering it well within the 18 month time frame. "The future is looking very bright for BOT-USA, We plan to grow the business and hire more designers and elec- trical engineers. We will be exhibiting at Oceans 2005 in September." www.brooke-ocean.com

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