No X-ray was needed to see the optimism brimming in the bevy of economic development chiefs packing the Orange County Business Accelerator”™s conference room in New Windsor the first week of July.
Though it”™s been in business for 40 years in Orange County, Calif., Array Optronix Devices L.L.C. recently opted to move its headquarters to the Orange County Business Accelerator in New Windsor.
OCBA, which opened in 2009, quickly received attention from several high-tech start ups and established businesses clamoring for the opportunity to partner with the incubator.
Array”™s lease for 1,800 square feet brings OCBA”™s capacity up to 94 percent. The company has taken an additional 2,200 square feet of space in an adjoining building in the Hudson Valley Industrial Park, next to Stewart International Airport.
Fred Flitsch, the company”™s president and CEO, said Array”™s business plan includes creating 25 new jobs within the next three years and to see that number quadruple by its fifth year. “These will be jobs for engineers and technicians that will range from $70,000-$100,000 a year,” he added.
“That means real jobs, real close to home,” said Michael DiTullo, managing director for the OCBA. Once companies “graduate” from the Accelerator, they agree to maintain and grow their businesses in Orange County.
While Array lauded  Orange County Partnership and the county”™s Industrial Development Agency,  Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp.  and Empire State Development Corp. for their cooperative efforts to bring the company to the Hudson Valley, Flitsch credited the resolve of Orange County Executive Ed Diana to make it happen. “From day one, the county executive led ”˜Team New York,”™” said Flitsch during the formal lease signing.
Flitsch saidArray, whose specialty is developing technology for photo detector devices for X-ray scanning devices, said the major factor in selecting the Hudson Valley was the wealth of intellectual property it offers. Sandeep Dave (chief operations officer), Dan Codi (senior vice president of engineering) and Flitsch share ties to IBM and to Fishkill”™s NXP (closed in 2009) that span several years.
“Three-D, X-ray-computed tomography is a growing field, particularly in medicine and homeland security,” said Flitsch, who noted the area”™s growing hi-tech, clean manufacturing businesses and its Tech Valley connection made the move to the Orange County Business Accelerator particularly desirable.
Array was able  to squeeze into New York state”™s Empire Zone program before closed shop on June 30.
For  the company”™s principal and Chief Financial Officer Kate McFarland, “It was the incredible amount of ”˜brain trust”™ available in the region and the cooperation between so many different governmental agencies” that convinced her the move from San Francisco to New Windsor was in Array”™s  best  long-term interests. Array has already received eight patents and has two applications pending for its architectural designs for its computed tomography devices.
“There are so many highly-skilled people in the area,” said Codi, a Warwick resident.  “It is ripe for this type of industry; we have the brain power and the beauty of the Hudson Valley. Why lose our incredible work force? Let”™s create the jobs so people can live and work here.”
