Springboard: launching technology in Alaska: Juneau-based program matches Alaska businesses, federal labs.

• Author: Swagel, Will

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Say you sit down for your usual breakfast of a glass of Tang powdered orange drink and three scrambled eggs cooked without oil in a Teflon pan. You scan the Internet for the latest traffic reports, secure that your car's global-positioning-system-based navigation will enable you to find alternate routes to work. Consider the fact that Tang, Teflon, the Internet and GPS were all first developed in military or other federal government laboratories and then passed on for civilian uses.

Today, there are more than 200 federal laboratories operating nationwide--many doing research that could have both military and civilian applications, said Rollo Pool, communications director for Springboard, a Juneau-based nonprofit with the mission of facilitating partnerships between those federal labs and Alaska businesses, scientists and educators.

"(The businesses) can take technology that has been patented by a lab, get a license to use it, and then they can develop a commercial application for it," Pool said. "The idea is to not only do that first transfer, but progress to a second one where you sell your application back to the federal government.

"I call it a two-way bridge," he said.

Springboard is a statewide program of the Juneau Economic Development Council and is one of six such programs nationwide. Each of the six was established through federal legislation and each partners with the Department of Defense to facilitate transfers of technology to civilian inventors and manufacturers.

Pool said there are a lot of good ideas being developed in federal labs every day. At the same time, there are many firms with good commercial expertise that are on the lookout for new products to develop, manufacture and market.

"That's where (Springboard) comes in," Pool said, "We're the matchmaker, the eHarmony.com."

CLEANING CARRIER DECKS

Palmer-based Triverus LLC is a Springboard client. Triverus is building a machine that cleans the decks of the giant aircraft carriers of the U.S. Navy--a job that is much harder than just making a super-sized Zamboni. Navy jets land and are catapulted off carrier decks at tremendous speeds and friction with the deck surface is a critical factor. Add a corrosive marine environment and strict environmental protection guidelines, and the machine needs to be maneuverable, space-efficient, ultra-reliable and repairable at sea. Triverus is tackling all of these specifications.

But engineers used to solving...