Thursday, January 6, 2011

HALO Maritime builds business around marine defense

By Lynette F. Cornell

Princes and sheiks looking for protection for their palaces are among the potential customers HALO Maritime Defense Systems Inc. is pursuing for its marine barriers. The Andover-based company just landed a $1 million round of funding from private investors, and according to CEO Paul Jensen, the company will be using the funding to pursue its first contract.

The company, which changed its name from Elemental Innovation Inc. in 2008, previously raised a $2 million round in June 2010. Jensen declined to name the investors in the latest financing round.

Other customers the company is targeting include government and military institutions and private companies with maritime assets to protect, such as LNG plants and oil rigs. Jensen said the company is focusing on customers in the Middle East, given the area’s demand for a defense system from attack boats in highly trafficked port waters.

“The threat is small boats. Anybody can get a boat and load it up with explosives,” said Jensen.

Because the boats are indistinguishable from non-threatening fishing and pleasure boats, said Jensen, potential targets of the attack are limited by rules of engagement in taking proactive actions to stop the approaching vessels. The company’s barriers solve this problem, he said, by creating a passive resistance to attacks.

The barriers, which are approximately 8 feet tall, are made of plastic composites and use the water they are submerged in to create a stopping force against boats up to 35 feet in length. The stopping force created by one linear foot of barrier is equal to one ton of water, said Jensen, and a second wall in the barrier creates redundancy in case the first wall is breached.

Other barrier products exist for land-side defense, but a water-side solution has been difficult to develop because of the need for durability and low amounts of sway in the water, said Jensen. Sea fences currently employed as lines of demarcation create a visual deterrent, he said, but fail actually to stop an attack. Jensen did not give a price for the company’s barrier systems, stating that each one is a custom build but said the market size the company is pursuing is in the billions.

The system was first designed by the father-son team of Robert and Justin Bishop. The pair also designed a wave attenuator system, the rights to which the company has sold. Justin serves as the chief technology officer for the company. His father Robert has since passed away, according to Jensen.

The rest of Halo’s management team has a solid backing in military and defense technology. Jensen is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. COO Eric Johnson has previously worked for Waltham-based defense titan Raytheon Co. Serving on Halo’s board of advisors is Kirk Lippold, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who was the commanding officer of the USS Cole when it came under a suicide terrorist attack from a small boat in 2000.