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Published on: 2/20/2006
Last Visited: 2/26/2006
"It's a pretty exciting thing," says Bud Cass, president of Advanced."Something that originated here in New Jersey is in the Olympics for everyone in the world to see," although the amount of exposure his company gets is "pretty much up to Head's marketing department."
Head-sponsored competitors using the fiber-laced skis are competing in some or all of the five different Alpine skiing events: downhill, super-g, giant slalom, slalom and combined.
Cass says the high-tech skis "would have the most effect on downhill and slalom, not jumping or freestyle skiing," because they're meant to get skiers down the hill faster by reducing the vibrations generated by rapid movement.
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"The product line really doesn't have much life left in it," says Cass."It peaked about a year and a half ago."That could be a crushing blow to the company, which Cass says got "more than half" of its $2 million in revenue last year from its proprietary line of ceramic fibers.
Advanced's other products include nonpiezoelectric fibers and ceramic components for fiber-optic equipment.
Today, most research and development dollars are being pumped into improving its piezoelectric fiber technology and finding applications for new versions of it.The company has a R&D budget of some $400,000 and has received nearly $5 million over the past 10 years in Small Business Innovation Research funding under a program run by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Cass says the U.S. Coast Guard is looking at the company's fibers for possible use in electroluminescent buoys that use wave motion to generate light.