ROME — What can you do with $1 million? Reserve 25 parking spots in Manhattan, take possession of your own orca whale, buy four seats on the Virgin Galactic spaceship.
For Andrew (Andy) L. Drozd, $1 million allows him to expand his business by leasing additional space to accommodate more employees, create two new laboratories, and acquire new equipment. Drozd, president and chief scientist at ANDRO Computational Solutions, LLC, has grown his company from 15 to 40 employees just in the last two years and is projecting to add another 25 over the next 18 months.
Business plan
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The business plan calls for converting the corporate entity to a “sub-S” corporation in the first quarter of 2016 and spinning off the commercial operation as a new corporation at about the same time. “The working name of the new corporation is Spectrum Fusion, Inc.,” says Drozd, “which will be a wholly owned subsidiary co-located in the annex adjacent to ANDRO’s current space at the Beeches Professional Campus in Rome. Currently, commercial contracts only represent 15 percent of our sales, with government and the military representing the other 85 percent. Spectrum Fusion will concentrate on the growing UAV/UAS (unmanned aerial vehicles or systems, otherwise known as drones) market.”
Drozd continues, “Our service provides simulation tools to analyze co-site and spectrum co-existence issues. In other words, we give our customers the ability to perform interactive computer modeling, simulation, and analysis to ensure that co-located communications systems don’t interfere with each other. Wherever there are multiple transmitters and receivers co-located on a common platform such as a UAV, we guarantee that all systems operate as intended.”
The company’s business plan also considers establishing an office in Washington, D.C. and promotes affiliating with a major group to help drive sales. “At our size, it’s hard to compete for business. Our biggest competitor, Computer Simulation Technology (CST), a company based in Germany (Darmstadt), offers a wide range of EM (electromagnetic) simulation software for co-site analysis. The real challenge in competing is matching [its] marketing-and-sales budget. [For example,] ANDRO can’t afford to attend every [trade] conference, so we only choose a limited number each year. (CST claims to have 270 sales-development and support personnel.) That’s why we are in discussions with a major corporation, which I hope to formalize within a year. This would position the company to reach a number of new customers who aren’t aware of our products and services.”
Diversification
Drozd is also intent on diversifying the company’s revenue streams. “ANDRO started out as a niche-oriented R&D company that did ground-breaking work in electromagnetic effects,” explains the company’s chief scientist. “Our flagship product, E3Expert, was developed for the analysis of co-located communications and radar systems, multispectral electromagnetic environment effects, antenna jamming, receiver immunity and desensitization, cable-to-cable coupling, and electronics susceptibility. But ANDRO has also evolved to operate on multiple technology fronts including technology to identify and prevent intrusions in wireless communications both in civilian and military applications.”
As the wireless industry grows rapidly, so do cyberattacks. ANDRO is performing R&D in this technology domain for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and helping to pave the way for a future Center of Excellence in Spectrum Exploitation, Drozd adds. ANDRO technologies also include sensor-resource management, integrating electronic warfare and cyber defense, advanced data fusion and signal processing for target tracking, and automatic target recognition.
ANDRO’s headquarters is located just north of Rome. The company also has offices in Dayton, Ohio and at the CASE Center at Syracuse University. Of the 40 people it currently employs, 34 are located in Rome. The firm currently leases 15,000 square feet on three floors from the Destito family. Drozd is partnering with the Destitos to pursue further campus expansion in the near future. The company was founded in 1994 by Drozd, who is the sole stockholder. The Business Journal estimates ANDRO’s 2015 revenue at $7.5 million.
Partnerships
ANDRO boasts a long list of high-profile customers: AFRL, Harris Corp., Israel Air Force, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Space Missile Defense Center, NASA, and Australian Military Defense, along with many others. It also has strategic partnerships and agreements with industry players such as Thales, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics. Partnerships are not limited to industry, however. ANDRO has established academic relationships with a number of universities, among them Syracuse, Penn State, Illinois, Texas (Arlington), Lehigh, San Diego State, and SUNY Buffalo.
“We have teamed up with a number of U.S. universities to pursue [federal] SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) and STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) grants,” notes Drozd.
The programs represent the largest source of early stage, research-and-development funding for small business. ANDRO is the recipient of dozens of these grants and was recently recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration for a Tibbetts Award, one of only 23 companies so recognized nationwide.
“It’s not uncommon for a university to come up with a technology idea and then reach out to ANDRO to enhance the innovation. But don’t think we’re passive, just waiting to be contacted. ANDRO regularly interacts with its academic partners to stay abreast of their research,” Drozd explains.
Employees
Assembling a talented team, while growing quickly, has been a challenge for Drozd. “It’s difficult to find good, local talent in this highly competitive environment,” laments the company president. “But ANDRO has been successful by offering its hires challenging work and by providing a ‘fun’ environment. I have never looked for work unless it presented a challenge, because that’s what attracts top-notch scientists. These projects also typically lead to more work, because it separates us from our competitors. I also want every employee to enjoy the workplace. That’s why we sponsor a number of social activities and field trips, put on open houses for the community, and distribute free tickets to our employees to attend cultural events in the area. The company also encourages wellness by encouraging physical exercise. (ANDRO won the 2014 Workplace Wellness Award for companies with fewer than 50 employees. The award program is produced by BizEventz, a sister corporation of The Business Journal.) And to vie for talent, the company pays very competitive salaries and benefits.”
In addition to relying on the staff at ANDRO, Drozd also draws on professional support from area companies: Bond, Schoeneck, & King for legal services, especially in the area of intellectual property; D’Arcangelo handles the accounting; and Adirondack Bank is the company’s primary lender.
Drozd was born in Belgium and immigrated to America at the age of 1 year. He attended high school in Rome and Syracuse University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in physics and math and a master’s degree in electrical engineering in 1982. His career included stints at the Rome Air Development Center, IIT Research Institute, General Electric, and Kaman Sciences Corp. Drozd also taught physics at Utica College. He launched ANDRO in 1994. One son, who is currently enrolled at Le Moyne College, is interning at the business.
Fibonacci project
At age 59, Drozd is having too much fun to think about slowing down. In addition to growing his company more than 400 percent in fewer than four years, he wants to create a research and academic center on the 55 acres of the Beeches site. “I want to encourage small businesses to locate here to establish a collaborative environment between scientific research and the arts. Everyone is talking about the need to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Well, I added an “A” for arts to create STEAM. I call it the Fibonacci project, because Fibonacci was the most talented [Western] mathematician of the Middle Ages who published a book popularizing numeration. He identified ratios in nature that are constant, thus integrating nature, art, and mathematics. My vision is to create a village here which exemplifies Fibonacci’s legacy.”
The dream has led ANDRO’s president to look for funding. “I would like to see the MV-500 initiative help to underwrite this project,” intones Drozd. “I think it’s a critical piece of the region’s economic development.” MV-500 is sponsored by Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente and designed to respond to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $1.5 billion upstate economic-revitalization program. In January, the governor announced that three regions of Upstate would each receive $500 million for the best economic-development plans. MV-500 represents six counties that comprise the Mohawk Valley.
