What makes Kirk's SLM different from others in production (Hughes Aircraft Co. and Litton Industries Inc. are his main domestic rivals) is matching the increased speed with high versatility and with increased resolution and contrast quality (250 lines per millimeter -- and climbing -- versus the 50 to 100 lpmm that others boast) of its imaging. With electronic processing translated instantaneously into computer memory, reproduction of the holographic image is possible in real time. The effect is not unlike the technical leap achieved by graduating from movie film to videotape.
NASA, for one, is intrigued with the implications of such rarefied technology. Out of 977 proposals submitted to the space agency last year under its Small Business Innovation Research program, Holotronics's was 1 of only 102 to draw Phase I funding. This $50,000 contract, spread over six months, "seeks systematically to approach the desired microsecond response time without compromise of the other parameters." A Phase II award would supply as much as an additional $500,000 to build a single Optical Tunnel Array unit to NASA's specifications. After that, funding will depend on Holotronics's ability to capitalize for commercial production.
One reason behind NASA's interest is the problem of having to process orbital imaging and telemetry data by beaming the raw numbers back to huge earthbound computers. With an optical computing system employing Kirk's SLM, much of the same number crunching could happen right on board, using little power and less cargo area: a nine-volt battery, Kirk reckons, hooked up to a 64K microprocessor-in a shoebox-size space. Optically processed, he says, "a million-point matrix-matrix multiplication sequence could be done several orders of magnitude [faster] than today's state-of-the-art digital electronic computing. Processing speeds are approaching the speed of light." Even Tom Swift rarely dreamed on such a scale.
But Ron Kirk thinks big, or rather, very, very small. He says that if he had been more aware of the technical difficulties his competitors were having, he would have been wasting his time solving their problems, not coming up with fresh approaches of his own. In more philosophical moments, he propounds on "eight-dimensional reality" and his own ability to conceptualize "negative vectors," both as an inventor and a businessman. "Anything you do plots its own reciprocal value," is the way he puts it. Roughly translated, this means looking at a minus and seeing the immediate, corresponding plus. Or vice-versa. Either way, it is a talent closely identified with genius -- even genius of the nonfiction variety.
"I worked closely with Edwin Land for eight years," says Holotronics's patent attorney, Gerald Smith, referring to the retired avatar of Polaroid Corp. "Ron Kirk is of the same order of genius that Land was. His mind is unique. The fact that he's totally self-taught in some of the most esoteric areas of technology makes him all the more amazing to me."
Smith was not the first outsider to attempt a sober analysis of Kirk's design. In 1981, Ron pitched Battelle Memorial Institute, the renowned Columbus, Ohio, research firm, on the idea of lab-testing his theory. About 40 years ago, Battelle had performed the research readying another then-obscure technology for the marketplace: xerography. But Battelle was not exactly accustomed to dealing with small-town fire captains. Then again, Kirk was not a fellow easily daunted, either. He arranged a session with the lab's Optical Sciences staff to outline his theory. After a three-hour blackboard dissertation ("they told me later that it was the first time they'd ever sat straight through lunch," Kirk says), agreement was reached on a $12,000 feasibility study. It was at this point that Holotronics incorporated, and another important chapter in the unfolding saga was written.
"Firemen are like little old ladies: They gossip all the time," says Mike Jeffery, 17 years a member of the Findlay firefighter's corps and a colleague of Kirk's for the past 9. Jeffery, known as "Moose" to his friends, has what you might call a low-investment profile when it comes to managing his fiscal affairs. Nevertheless, he says, "I'd heard about Ron when he was still over at the east side station. He had quite a reputation. The kind of guy who -- if you'll pardon the expression -- ate, drank, and screwed electronics. I mean, he was always messing around with TVs, radios amplifiers, what have you. Now, I'm not much of a gambler. Basically, I like putting my money into things I can put my hands on. But when this stock deal came along, I thought, hell, why not take a chance just once in your life?"
The chance Moose Jeffery decided to bet on was a 40,000-share, non-SEC-sanctioned offering of Holotronics common stock, at $50 a share. In certain professional circles around Findlay, it was the talk of the town.
"Lots of guys were whispering about it around the station house," reports Jack Oakman Jr., a policeman who moonlights as a security guard at a Findlay McDonald's to make ends meet. "To be honest with you, I had no idea what a hologram was. But my friends in the fire department, over at the east side station, convinced me to go to the first shareholders' meeting, and I was real impressed. Ron kept saying he didn't want us putting anything into his company that we couldn't afford to lose. He was very low-key about the whole thing."
