Vilma Anderson

Rayleigh's owners , David and Vilma Anderson , decided the company needed to be closer to its two biggest customers : NASA and Goddard Space Center.

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Vilma Anderson , Rayleigh's president , said it was more than the timing that made Merritt attractive to Rayleigh.

The company expects to need at least double the square footage they have now within seven years.

We wanted to be with a company that had a good reputation and had other buildings in the area if we needed to move quickly , Anderson said.They are pretty well-known in that area..

Rayleigh considered locations in Massachusetts and Virginia as well before deciding to zero in on the Baltimore metro region.

Two things helped Baltimore leap ahead : The couple has family in Bethesda , and Baltimore has more suppliers of the mechanical and electrical equipment the company uses than does Virginia , Anderson said.

We both felt that our work would be easier to do in Baltimore than in the other places we looked , Anderson said.That particular location of NASA has more of a need for optics than the locations in Houston and Florida.'.

The equipment used by Rayleigh will be moved into its new space Aug. 16.Anderson hopes by mid-September to have hired core employees.They will start out with a handful of employees , but expect to be employing 25 people within the next two years , she said.

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While Anderson wouldn't discuss financials , she said the company works on four to eight medium-sized contracts a year , each of which lasts six to eight months on average.The company is working on the primary mirrors for the Subaru telescope in Hawaii , and mirrors for the Lunar Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.

Rayleigh purchases the mirror glass from manufacturers , then modifies the glass to make it fit the optical parameters its clients are looking for.

A layman would look at the glass as it entered and left the shop and think it looks exactly the same , maybe a little bit shinier , Anderson said.That person would wonder what we are doing that takes nine months.But scientists and astronomers can tell the difference..

David and Vilma Anderson founded Rayleigh in 1987.David , vice president of engineering and director of large optics , worked in the Stewart Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona while attending college.After he returned from a stint with the Peace Corps in Nepal , he and Vilma , who has an MBA , founded the company.

Home Monday Tuesday Wednesday

As Vilma Anderson, president of Rayleigh Optical Corp. in Baltimore, once said: "I would rather have a half-dozen loyal customers than a dozen new ones."