For Avior Control, the sky’s not the limit

LONGMONT — A spot among the Mercury 100 list of fastest-growing companies in the Boulder Valley is nothing new for Longmont-based Avior Control Technologies.

In 2016, the company ranked second in Flight 4. In 2017, it was third in Flight 3, and this year, it’s third in Flight 2.

But why stop at Mercury when eight-year-old Avior has its eyes on Mars, Jupiter and Saturn?

“Eight years in the space industry is the blink of an eye, a very short period,” said Avior vice president Scott Starin. “We’re going to Mars, Jupiter and Jupiter’s moons. We have proposals for a drone that will operate on Titan, a moon of Saturn.”

Avior makes custom, high-performance motors and motion controls for space, high-vacuum and high-reliability industries, and has developed numerous applications for launch vehicles. The extreme environments in which its systems operate even include “down-hole” oil exploration, Starin said, but since 2010, “our focus has been to provide motion-control components primarily for the space industry.”

Working as a system engineer and project manager at Ball Aerospace & Technologies, Starin noticed that the “suppliers giving us motors weren’t servicing the demanding needs that extreme environments of space required.

“That’s why Avior was started with the idea of making the highest-performance, highest reliability components for the space industry,” Starin said. “But just delivering the hardware is a small part. There’s also better service and support, testing, documentation, engineering support — and getting the right motor and gearbox for their application.”

Staying in Boulder County was a natural for the new company, he said.

“Boulder is such a hotbed for the industry,” Starin said. “The customers and suppliers are here. The engineering and production talent are here. The testing materials are right here in Longmont.”

Avior has sold its technology in the United Kingdom, Spain and Belgium, but also to area firms Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Air Squared Manufacturing in Broomfield and Sierra Nevada Space Systems in Louisville.

Avior moved into its 14,000-square-foot production space on Pike Road in Longmont in November 2015. “At the beginning of 2015 we had 10 full-time employees, and we’re pushing 30 this year. We’re considering expansion on the building or looking for a new facility.”

Avior was acquired in March by Ensign-Bickford Industries Inc., a 182-year-old, privately held science and technology company based in Simsbury, Conn., but the acquisition has only enhanced Avior’s appetite for discovery.

“We’ve invented a motor-control technology that can run a home air-conditioner motor much more efficiently than they’re being run today, but we haven’t had time to market or present it,” Starin said, “but we’re also working on compressed oxygen for Mars. They’re robotically going to build habitats for astronauts on Mars before they get there, and we need to compress and scrub that thin Martian atmosphere to make it breathable in the habitats. That’ll be launched in 2020,” Starin said.

“It’s really exciting when we’re expanding mankind’s knowledge and capabilities.”

See the list 2018 BizWest 500 – Boulder Valley Mercury 100

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