The National Composite Center has opened a satellite campus with Vector Composites Inc. as its first tenant.
Vector will develop and produce composite electronic enclosures at the Dayton, Ohio, satellite composite facility. Its technologies will include resin transfer molding combined with autoclaves, clean rooms and other equipment.
The National Composite Center's main campus is in Kettering, Ohio. It helps develop and promote composites for aerospace and defense industries, automotive markets and commercial and infrastructure applications. It was formed in 1996.
Vector was bought by DR Technologies Inc. of San Diego, Calif., with the help of state and local incentives. DR will rent 30,000 square feet of space on behalf of Vector in Dayton and invest about $1.5 million in equipment and renovations. Vector, previously a spinoff company from the National Composite Center, plans to move into its facility in April 2007. DR's business plan calls for annual sales of $10 million and employment of about 100 at the Vector operation by 2009.
``[National Composite Center's] rapid fiber preform technologies were complementary to our resin infusion processes and fit certain requirements we had,'' noted DR Technologies Chief Executive Officer Lyle Dunbar in a news release.
``The acquisition of Vector allowed us to tap [National Composite Center's] capabilities.''
DR began working in the Dayton area in 2003 when its subsidiary V Systems Composites of Anaheim, Calif., teamed up with the composite center on an Air Force contract. V System also did vacuum-assisted RTM work for the composite center to help it investigate the use of rapid fiber preforms in aerospace.
DR's other subsidiary is Vanguard Composites Group of San Diego. DR makes composite structures for defense and commercial aerospace markets.