Tech firm first to move into old Grumman site

TECHNOLOGY

When the Applied Science Center of Innovation and Excellence in Homeland Security opens later this month in the completely refurbished Plant 5 at the sprawling Northrop Grumman Corp. facility in Bethpage, some people will already be old-timers there.

Among them will be identical twins Richard and Robert Balfour, as well as Scott Meyers and their six employees at Balfour Technologies Llc. Balfour was the first company to sign a lease and move into the center, which is aimed at getting businesses under one roof to come up with projects for homeland security. Northrop Grumman will occupy an entire floor, and the Long Island Forum for Technology will also have space there.

Balfour designs a four-dimensional browser that allows users to be aware of multiple pieces of information on a single screen. A user might see the layout of a building, plus details such as square footage, date of construction and number of rooms. Such information could be valuable to law enforcement authorities.

Richard and Robert Balfour both worked for the former Grumman Corp., designing Navy flight simulators.

"We started at Grumman right after college," Robert said. "Rich and I have been doing this [simulations] for 30 years. It's the same thing now, just a different market."

Meyers said the 10-year-old company won contracts to design multi-informational browsers for the Rose Bowl in 2009 and in '08 and has a contract with the new center in Bethpage to build a "tailgater," a system that could be mounted on a truck or van and used by police at accident or crime scenes.

Being in the center, Meyers said, "means having access to government agencies, academia and other partner companies. It gives us the ability to become real homeland security experts."