Targeting Unmanned Vehicles

Charlotte Crane | 7/1/2006

A year after selling his military electronics company for $75 million, Fort Walton Beach entrepreneur Paul Hsu is already launching another venture: A $16-million airpark focusing on the manufacture and storage of unmanned aerial vehicles. The drones have both military and civilian uses and range in size from "something that will sit on your pond to a 747. The timing is perfect for border patrol,'' says Hsu. "The UAV is definitely the future.''

TARGET: Paul Hsu aims to attract makers of drones (like the one above) to his airpark.

Hsu's Advanced Technology Air Park will sit on 18.5 acres within Crestview's Okaloosa Industrial Park, with a county-built taxiway connecting it to Bob Sikes Airport. Plans call for a 40,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing and office building for an anchor tenant, which will build SUV-sized UAVs, and, later, a 50,000-sq.-ft. hangar.

Hsu expects numerous aerospace-related companies will move to Okaloosa County as area military bases pursue new missions assigned by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Defense contractors locate where the missions are, says Economic Development Council Executive Director Larry Sassano, "and there's no existing space now available.''

Hsu, a member of the President's Export Council and a native of Taiwan, founded Manufacturing Technology Inc. in 1984. He employed 500 when he sold the company to Dayton, Ohio-based MTC Technologies Inc. He retains two spinoffs that together logged $10 million in 2005 sales: Total Parts Plus helps electronics companies locate obsolescent tools and services; ActiGraph makes a medical device, an electronic activity monitor.

Tags: Northwest