Northeast PA innovators get a boost from Ben Franklin

The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP) has once again opened its coffers, this time with a total of $260,000 to support three promising early-stage companies and one established manufacturer.

BFT/NEP is loaning $120,000 to Allentown’s ZeroTruck Corporation to complete development of ZeroTruck’s next-generation electric drive integration system. The system will be installed in new or existing truck chassis to convert gasoline and diesel trucks to zero-emission, plug-in electric vehicles. With surging fuel costs, expanding environmental protection regulation, and public demand for greener transportation, the electric vehicle market continues to grow. ZeroTruck plans to establish its production facility in the Lehigh Valley.

PROVA Systems of Carbondale will get a $50,000 loan to support the launch and commercial development of a new application for fleet management. PROVA manufactures a cloud-based diagnostic device that collects, monitors, and analyzes the performance of every vehicle and every driver in a vehicle fleet. This device allows proactive management of vehicles using data derived from their usage patterns and collected from on-board computers. Prova’s system can reduce fleet operations costs by more than 60% versus current technology.

BFT/NEP is loaning SuccessTSM in East Stroudsburg $85,000 to commercialize a proprietary new disaster recovery management software tool, called Maggie Bare Server Restore (MBSR), and establish procedures that will be used to implement a repeatable sales process. This software application supports Tivoli Storage Manager, IBM’s widely used enterprise-wide network storage management solution. The MBSR process requires only a 15-minute down time following a disaster or test, versus the current industry standard of at least four hours.

And BFT/NEP is providing a $5,000 matching grant for a partnership between Electro Chemical & Manufacturing Company of Emmaus and Lehigh University’s Materials Science Department. Electro is an established maker of thermoplastic and fluoropolymer lined steel vessels used to manufacture, distribute, and store corrosive chemicals. With Lehigh scientists, the company is working to develop an adhesive primer that will allow lined vessels used in corrosive fluid handling environments to be utilized in applications requiring a greater range of temperature and pressure conditions, allowing the company to broaden its product offerings and promote sales and employment growth.