The Fire-fighting Ceo

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The next time you are in Findlay, Ohio, you might drop by the northside fire station and ask for Captain Ronald Kirk. A nine-year veteran of the force, he can tell you all about fighting fires and saving lives. Then again, you may prefer to discuss, say, holography, another subject on which Captain Kirk is well informed. Indeed, when he is not on duty at the station, he serves as chief executive officer of The Holotronics Corp., a company he formed two years ago for the purpose of marketing a new holographic device he developed -- a device that some are calling "a major breakthrough" in the field.

Holograms are ghostlike, three-dimensional images, traditionally created by beaming laser light onto photographic film plates. They are perhaps most familiar in the form of 3-D stickers, but make no mistake. Holography is serious business. Electronic scanners in supermarket check-out counters, for example, rely on holographic optics to read the Universal Product Code emblems on groceries. MasterCard International is planning to use holograms on credit cards to discourage counterfeiting. And the list goes on.

In the past, however, holography's potential has been limited by several factors, including the need to develop the images on photographic film. What Kirk did was to invent an electronic device, called a "spatial light modulator," which can create instantaneous, or "real-time," holograms without film. Several companies have shown "genuine, major interest" in the device, says Kirk. A contact-lens maker, for one, plans to use it to detect manufacturing defects. That contract alone will provide revenues of more than $1 million over three years. Down the line, Kirk's device could help to open up the field of "optical computing," an arcane technology that many believe will someday revolutionize the data processing industry, allowing vast quantities of information to be processed at almost unimaginable speeds.

So how did a small-town fireman happen to come up with something like this?

Well, Kirk, who is 31 years old, is no ordinary fireman. A child prodigy of sorts, he first began thinking about real-time holography some 13 years ago. After graduating from Findlay High, he worked as an electronics engineer for several large companies in Toledo, but "large corporations are too bureaucratic to get any meaningful research done," he says. "I mean, they have red tape up the wazoo." So he returned to Findlay, joined the fire department, and pursued his research in his spare time.

"Fire fighting is conducive to independent thinking," he says. "You have to be self-sufficient and willing to take chances," and you have to balance that independence against the need for team-work. "These are the same qualities necessary to build a company."

Nevertheless, he admits that there have been conflicts. "Actually, you have to be a schizo to do it. You live one-third of your life at the fire station, eating, sleeping, and working with the guys there. A closeness develops that's even greater than brothers feel. Then you go to a business, where you have to prove yourself academically. The environment is more professional and less binding."

The growth of Holotronics may soon force Kirk to give up fire fighting. He says he will miss it. "Fire fighting is a challenge that is difficult to describe. There's the fact that you have to perform in a pressure situation. You must prove yourself simply to stay alive. That in itself is extremely self-motivating. You have the highest goals in mind when you make a decision to save yourself or someone else first "

Of course, from that perspective, any other career might seem tame by comparison.