TRS Technologies, a State College-based company that produces high-efficiency transducers, expects a boost next year from its specialized devices that handle sound waves for medical imaging and SONAR, says President Wesley Hackenberger.
“We’ve enjoyed an annual growth rate of about 10 percent since 2003. I expect to get back to that next year.”
Trends for innovation in sensor technology used by original equipment manufacturers, TRS’s primary clients, remain favorable for TRS’ high performance piezoelectric ceramics and dielectric materials. In addition, TRS created new single-crystal piezoelectrics whose sensitivity to sound waves allows the materials to operate at a level of efficiency at least five times greater than conventional piezo-ceramic actuators and transducers.
Now staffed by 35, TRS Technologies, a company founded by two material scientists from Penn State, will also be adding engineers, scientists, and technicians to meet new growth after the current year’s plateau in sales, Hackenberger says.
He credits Small Business Innovation Research grants for enabling TRS to transform the company’s ideas into new products.
“The grants helped us to develop our technology to a point where the Navy can seriously consider our applications for their major projects,” he says. “That program has fostered innovation that would be difficult to accomplish otherwise.”
Another reason he is upbeat: TRS technology has opened a window on new manufacturing processes as well as energy storage projects for the U.S. Army.
Source: TRS Technologies, Wesley Hackenberger
Writer: Joseph Plummer
