Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/83317
nother company that has grown around its university connections is Ocean Optics, though its product has done anything but stay local; in fact, the company's miniature spectrometers recently touched down on Mars onboard NASA's Curiosity rover. From its offices in Winter Park and Dunedin, Ocean Ocean Optics' STS Spectrometer is just one contribution to the Florida photonics industry, which generates more than $7 billion in annual sales making it one of the top four optics and photonics hubs in the nation. and raising funds. The company began to grow and soon afterward, they had to decide if staying in Gainesville would be advantageous both while seeking financing and recruiting skilled workers. "We ended up staying here in Florida for a number of reasons including the cost of living, which is a fraction of the cost of Silicon Valley, New York and others," said Tarantino. "We credit our decision to stay in Gainesville as the reason that we survived the 2008 crash. Many of our competitors went out of business as access to capital shut off. I don't think we could operate like we do somewhere else. We are proud of our Gainesville roots." Grooveshark employs 70 people in Gainesville and 15-20 people in New York for sales and other business functions. While most new hires still come from the Gainesville area and UF, the company attracts highly skilled talent from around the country. "The seeds are planted for growing this city and this region with the university right here. It is just a matter of companies getting into a successful niche, growing here and staying in the Gainesville area." (Editor's note: the UF campus in Gainesville sits at the northern end of the 23-county region and is also home to the new Florida Innovation Hub – a unique incubator connected to all of UF's technology licensing activities.) 62 florida.HIGH.TECH 2012 Optics has pioneered the development of miniature spectrometers, handheld devices that measure properties of light. Spectrometers can be used in a multitude of applications such as evaluating crop ripeness, enhancing medical diagnostics, studying soil composition on other planets and various other activities needing chemical analysis. With thousands sold per year, a popular Ocean Optics product is the very small STS spectrometer. Its compact size enables the STS to be used as a stand-alone product or incorporated into an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) product, similar to Intel microprocessors that can be added into Dell computers. For Ocean Optics' spectrometers, it's less about what they can do and more about what you can do with them. "We have a core belief in open innovation," said President Kevin Chittim. "We are constantly looking at feedback from our customers to find out not just what kind of products they want, but what kind of problems they want solved." The company's founders (researchers at UCF and USF) had a similar solution-oriented mindset at the beginning. "More than 20 years ago, scientists had to take a sample of what they were analyzing to the device housed in the lab," explained Chittim. "With the creation of the miniature spectrometer, we've enabled in-the- field analysis that has changed the way scientific study is performed." Though these technologies are but a sampling of the groundbreaking products within Florida's High Tech Corridor, the impact they have on today's marketplace prove that the region is bucking the notion that high tech products don't come from Florida. With the strengths of three research universities that have given rise to plenty of people with bright ideas, tech leaders proudly claim countless technologies that are made in the Corridor. OCEAN OPTICS NEW