Small, inventive technology companies are so much the heroes of Southern California industry that we sometimes forget that a time comes when a business has to grow. If it doesn't get bigger and richer, it gets left behind, no matter how inventive it is.
Childhood's end is a challenge that Aerovironment Inc., a Monrovia-based research company, is facing right now. It is involved in many aspects of experimental electric power, from cars and bicycles to small generators to solar-powered unmanned aircraft.
Indeed, Aerovironment--now at $30 million in revenue with 240 employees--helped develop key components of all those new products, which are about to have much wider use.
But if Aerovironment wants to reap the benefit of their emergence, it has to be capable of handling large orders. It has to go from research boutique to producer of electronic innovations.
And that's going to take money. So Aerovironment President and Chief Executive Timothy Conver, 54, is contemplating "recapitalization" through a public stock offering or some other means.
No spring chicken at 27 years of age, Aerovironment spans the years from Southern California's early concepts of nonpolluting vehicles and electric power to the present, when those concepts are reaching fulfillment. Its story holds lessons for all small companies as well as insights into new industries that are locally based and about to take off.
Under the guidance of Paul MacCready, a Caltech physicist who founded the company in 1971 and remains its chairman, Aerovironment developed solar-powered automobiles and other environmentally friendly energy devices. It has been financed mainly by grants from NASA, the Defense Department and private industry.
In 1987, after an Aerovironment solar-powered car won a race across the Australian outback, General Motors bought a 15% stake in the company, which then helped develop GM's Impact electric car.
The company became known for sophisticated electronic controls and motors that turn sunlight and wind power into electricity. Three years ago it brought out electric bicycles, which it markets to police departments through a venture with GT Bicycles of Santa Ana.
But environmental research funding declined in the early '90s and Aerovironment decided that it had to change course, to make and sell more products rather than rely on grants. Conver, an MBA from UCLA who had run a division of Whittaker Corp., was named chief executive.
