The definition of “demurrage” may not spring readily to mind, but the term has opened a world of possibilities for Airsis, a San Diego startup with 20 employees.
NELVIN C. CEPEDA / Union-Tribune
Airsis co-founders Jim Drewett (left) and Dean Rosenberg have built their business around the need for shipping terminals to maximize efficiency. Port Vision technology provides online access to real-time data about ship locations and movement.
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Demurrage means holding a container, boxcar or shipment beyond a certain time limit, a delay that can incur penalty charges. And to Gerry Bemberg, who buys crude oil and manages logistics for a Total refinery near Beaumont, Texas, the losses from demurrage can amount to millions of dollars.
The Total refinery is one of four in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area that together represent about 15 percent of U.S. gasoline production.
About 85 percent of the 2,000 ships that ply the narrow Sabine-Neches Waterway every year are crude-oil tankers with tight shipping schedules.
After reviewing an online mapping system that Airsis had developed for the Port of Houston, Bemberg said the refineries approached the San Diego company about developing a more elaborate ship-tracking system.
The result was “Port Vision,” a system that combines a real-time satellite mapping system with an online searchable database that Airsis co-founder and Chief Executive Dean Rosenberg calls a Google for maritime users.
“Imagine being able to search for a real ship, say the 'Mary Jane,' ” Rosenberg said. With Port Vision, “You can not only find the location of the ship, but its history of port visits. . . . We're not just showing points on a map. We're harvesting information.”
The system, Rosenberg said, “has the ability to significantly impact the inefficiencies associated with tanker traffic and scheduling at the terminals.”
Airsis was created in 2004 when Rosenberg merged his previous startup, a software services business called Abaris Technologies, with Applied Digital Security Inc., a local startup founded by Jim Drewett that specialized in satellite tracking technologies.
Before combining their resources, each company had subsisted mostly through small, customized orders.
Drewett's ADSI, for example, had helped Chula Vista police in a surveillance operation by developing a tracking device that was installed in a suspect's car.
Drewett also had demonstrated a system for U.S. Customs and Border Protection with product development grants from San Diego's Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technology. The center, also known as CCAT, is a consortium based at the San Diego State University Foundation that promotes the development of new technologies for use in defense and homeland security.
The core technology enabled customers to use a Web site to remotely monitor a network of sensors in real time. One of the challenges, however, was in focusing the company's business – because the remote monitoring technology could be used in different industries.
For example, Airsis has used its technology to provide real-time monitoring of air quality monitoring instruments distributed throughout the Port of Long Beach. Data for measurements of carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants can be accessed through the port's Web site.
The company's technology also can be used to monitor pipelines, cargo fleets and other specialized equipment such as mobile power generators used in emergencies by wireless service providers to restore cellular phone service.
So for Rosenberg and Drewett, Port Vision also represents the culmination in a series of projects that sometimes felt as disconnected as the storyline in a William Faulkner novel.
“They have developed a unique combination of software and hardware technology and, through kind of trial and error, determined which markets were ideal for their business,” said Ralph Mayer, president of the San Diego Tech Coast Angels.
Mayer was among several individual investors from the group who provided $1 million in early stage funding for Airsis last year.
“When we first picked them up, they were pretty much living by nickel and dime all over the place,” said Lou Kelly, chairman of CCAT's executive board. “We strongly advised them that they really needed to focus.”
The CCAT grants, which totaled almost $150,000, enabled Airsis to advance its technology and conduct field trials in 2003 and 2005, Rosenberg said. But focusing on border security in the hope of winning business from the Department of Homeland Security proved to be a bad idea.
Rosenberg and Drewett waited six months for the government to invite contractors to submit proposals for a program launched in 2003 that was called America's Shield Initiative. That never happened, though, and DHS eventually overhauled the program, which is now known as the Secure Border Initiative.
Now, with the development of Port Vision, Rosenberg said Airsis has found its core business.
“It's our intent for Port Vision to be the anchor for these other products,” he said. “We fully expect our next market will be the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and then other ports along the Gulf Coast.”
Airsis should generate about $2.5 million in revenue by the end of this year, Rosenberg said, when he hopes the company also will show its first profitable quarter.
“We've just had our first audited financials, which is a bit unusual for a company our size,” Rosenberg added. “So we're positioning ourselves to responsibly grow the company, to deal with strategic investors and big oil companies.”
Bruce Bigelow: (619) 293-1314; bruce.bigelow@uniontrib.com
Airsis technology provides real-time information about crude oil tankers and other ships operating in the Sabine-Neches Waterway near Beaumont, Texas.
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