Twelve years ago, Timothy Teen worked for a company that made very competitive batteries. Everybody realized that they were perfect for the one of the Army’s new vehicles. “The problem was, our company just wasn’t set up to do business with the U.S. Army,” says Teen. “So we let a fortune slip through our fingers.” Today, Teen is solving that very problem, to the benefit of the Army, businesses, and the buying public. As CEO of InSitech, Inc., he acts as commercial point guard for the Picatinny Arsenal in Morris county, the U.S. Army’s giant R & D plant. A self-sustaining non-profit, InSitech (www.insitech.org) brings in established companies, entrepreneurs, and management teams to partner with Picatinny, helping it reach its technological goals. Currently, such alliances also ease the cross over of existing technologies into commercial usage. The batteries are improved for the tanks, then re-improved for consumer cars. Everyone wins. InSitech began four years ago, as the vision of Carmine Spinelli, Picatinny’s former director of technology. He gazed enviously at the great braintrust and manufacturing capabilities that lay just beyond Picatinny’s gates in the private sector. In this Post 9/11 era of heightened security, Spinelli also witnessed a crying commercial need for many of the products the Army was already producing. Some entity was needed to grease the connection. Spinelli called on Teen, who at the time was analyzing technology and determining its commercial potential for Corporation Investment Partners, an old J.P. Morgan spinoff. Teen’s first move as CEO was to bring aboard long time colleague Joe Moran to handle the financial side as CFO. Thus in August 2004, InSitech, Inc. was born. Moran and Teen immediately saw that if the military and private business were going to enter into this marvelous sharing, the military would have to do more than just toss out bids to anxious and confused companies. “The programs like SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) have a breakdown,” says Teen, “because their departments are stingy with advice. To deal with the military, businesses need encouragement and nurturing.” To achieve this encouragement, InSitech began to set its feet in many camps. * Idea swap. Throughout Picatinny Arsenal’s 6,500 acres, 4,500 researchers and workers labor to come up with solutions for the Army’s needs. This is ARDEC (Armament Research, Development and EngineeringCenter.) This massive scientific laboratory specializes in optics, guidance systems, energetics, and the whole vast field of nanotechnology. But scientists talk, and they realize that prototype development can be boosted by sharing with academic and business R & D groups already immersed in the same problem. To centralize and hasten such collaboration, the Arsenal has just opened the 120-acre Picatinny Applied Research Campus (PARC.) Inside are available 100,000 square feet of lab and office space which Picatinny offers to private sector teams working on approved projects. “We have daily partnerings with universities and companies,” says Moran. “They share not only the lab space, but the $1.5 billion worth of very specialized equipment - some of it one of a kind.” This may be part of the reason for the 450 new technologies that have come out of ARDEC just since April of 2006. InSitech has been granted a 70-year management lease on the PARC with options. They will bring into the center scores of companies, and in the process add an estimated 1000 jobs to MorrisCounty. * Easing Introductions. Part of the InSitech service is to act as mentor through the military’s labyrinthian contract maze. Such consulting provides InSitech with its major income stream. “The logistics of dealing with the U.S. Army are not simple” notes Teen, “and most all firms consider InSitech’s consulting fees as a worthwhile investment.” CFO Moran points out that these fees are part of what sustains the non-profit InSitech. “We may hold 501c3 status,” he explains, “but the military encourages us to make a profit. After all, any profit we make goes back into the Army and lessens the cost to the taxpayer.” * Crossover Technology. On the battlefield, a new ARDEC- developed, 360-degree camera is proving itself a lifesaver. Soldiers are gaining a more precise reconnaissance picture as they enter the field. Meanwhile, back on American shores, this same camera is aiding first responders find victims. It also holds great commercial capabilities in everything from real estate sales to archeology field work. By such crossover partnering missions InSitech is helping the Army find peace time uses for its military products. Another such crossover package was developed originally by Princeton Plasma Physics Lab for the Army a mere three months after 9/11. MINDS - short for Miniature Integrated Nuclear Detection System - was a software package operable from a simple laptop which could detect dangerous radiation as apart from naturally occurring or safe, medically-used radiation. As numerous agencies and companies become more security conscious, the commercial use for the product became evident. By benefit of InSitech, MINDSCo. was formed. The MINDS software system is now operated by the New York/New Jersey Port Authority. * Venturing into VC. In many cases, it’s less information or mentoring that a business requires, than good hard cash. To meet this need InSitech has developed, jointly with Chart Group, a direct venture capital arm - Chart Venture Partners, L.P. This for-profit firm, currently holding assets of $150 million, has been dispensing its investments typically in allotments of $3 to $7 million. They seek to advance companies which can commercialize defense and security oriented technologies for any market use. Those interested in applying should visit www.chartventure.com Since President Dwight Eisenhower’s first warning in l952, all of us have felt edgy about what feels to be the growing military industrial complex. The temptation of making military decisions based on private business profit, many say, is impossible to resist. Others, not without some historical precedent may eye any corporate - military linkage as leading to collusion and pork barrel. Yet a real analysis shows InSitech, Inc.’s mission as similar to NASA’s crossover commercialization. Certainly, the laser, optical, and heat-resistent materials technologies have been boosted by NASA’s efforts and made our lives richer. Hopefully, ARDEC’s outreach via the non-profit InSitech will do the same and even provide a little spending streamlining while it’s about it. Timothy Teen has a two decade history of making small companies large and fostering successful linkups. Calling himself “a thoroughly Jersey boy,” Teen was raised in Bradley Beach and graduated from MontclairUniversity with a bachelors in business in l984. As a marketing strategist, Teen then worked for several companies throughout the GardenState. Previous to heading up InSitech, Teen worked for Corporate Investment Partners. Joe Moran is also a GardenState native, having grown up in FloramPark. He graduated from BentleyCollege in Massachusetts with a bachelor’s in finance in 1993. He came to know and befriend Tim Teen when they worked together at Corporate Investment Partners.
