POWER UP: A creative family builds a military contractor in Murphy.

• Date: 01 November 2022
• Author: Barkin, Dan

Murphy, a town of about 1,900 people situated 15 miles from Tennessee and half that to Georgia, is an unusual headquarters for a defense contracting firm. But Aegis Power Systems has built a substantial business during two generations of family ownership.

Aegis recently won a couple of Small Business Innovation Research grants from the Army, totaling $500,000. These were the first SBIRs won by a Cherokee County business, according to CEO Arlissa Vaughn.

Vaughns father, Bill Dockery, founded the company in 1995, but the story started when the Murphy native joined the Air Force at age 18. After eight years, he came back to attend UNC Charlotte and study electrical engineering. Then, he and his wife headed westand eventually settled in Colorado where Dockery became a manager...