Focus on market for blast-resistant camera

B igwigs from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security came together with executives from a Canadian company and Long Island business people at the Morrelly Center for Homeland Security in Bethpage earlier this week to usher in a new era in securing equipment to defend the country.

Homeland Security officials unveiled the first technology manufactured by a private company to receive the agency's equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval: a certification from its Secure program. Secure fosters partnerships between the agency and businesses and is Homeland Security's largest program aimed at commercializing products.

In this case, Visual Defence, headquartered in Richmond Hill, Ontario, won the Secure certification for a "blast-resistant" camera that can be used to spot terrorist or other nefarious activity at train stations, bus stops and other transit hubs.

A key element, said Thomas Cellucci, a Homeland Security chief commercialization officer, is that the agency paid no money for the development of the camera. That was shouldered by Visual Defence, which spent about $2 million, said Vicki Looney, vice president of business development at the company's head U.S. office in Leesburg, Va.

Now that the company's camera has Homeland Security certification -- backed up by extensive Army testing -- it can use that status to help sell its product on the open market.

Cellucci, a laser physicist who spent most of his career in the private sector, said the Secure program represents a new beginning for government procurement.

The emphasis at Homeland Security, he said, will be to provide companies with government requirements and an examination of the market, and then ask them to build something that would later receive government certification.

The camera was unveiled at the Morrelly Center because Homeland Security wanted to use its ultramodern interior as a backdrop. But Frank Otto, president of the center, said its 16 tenant companies are highly likely to play a role in the Secure program in the future.

Looney accepted the Secure certification award from Cellucci. Then she offered a plea: "Now what my boss wants is lots and lots of orders."