With that epiphany, in March 1994 Bouchard bought a company called Microprocessor Systems Inc. (MPSI) from downsizing Dynatech Corp. and dropped it into the mix. MPSI boasted computerized diagnostic products that determined the condition of the components of an engine from the outside. Bouchard's idea was to market that ability along with the driver- and vehicle-handling recording capacity of the VORAD process and come out with products that together advised fleet managers when a given truck engine, transmission, braking mechanism, or other part needed service. A driver who habitually used the engine to slow the vehicle on hills, for instance, would draw a particular preventive-maintenance pattern. Whether the heavy-vehicle industry would pay for such products was unclear, but one thing was certain: no one else was out there with similarly comprehensive offerings.
Despite VORAD's consciously high profile, some fellow collision-avoidance players remained oblivious to its dramatic inroads. "Competitors whose products are years away assume that everyone else's are years away as well," Bouchard observes. An example: General Motors had purchased two radar units from RCS way back in 1972, ostensibly to test the accident-preventing merits of the technology. Mysteriously, GM wasn't heard from for 20 years, until one day in 1992, alerted by the inescapable publicity emanating from VORAD's Greyhound deployment, GM phoned to express interest in an update. Last year GM called with a request that VORAD comment on a certain spec that GM was developing. Bouchard's conclusion: "What undoubtedly is a well-financed internal effort hadn't yielded hoped-for results."
And only a few months ago VORAD attended an international radar symposium at the Hotel Del Coronado in its hometown, San Diego. As a roundtable of would-be developers discussed the problems of government constraints on power and bandwidth, a representative of the Federal Communications Commission cut in. "Gentlemen," he's reported to have pronounced, "I must tell you that the feats you're talking about achieving by the end of the decade are already being done by a little company right here in town."
Indeed, before any of those gentlemen had a true IVHS product to offer, the "little company," now the employer of more than 100 people, the holder of numerous patents, and the seller of fleet-maintenance, driver-monitoring, and automatic collision-prevention systems, was taking in $4.2 million in 1993. It would do another $12.5 million in 1994. "We're out there with a product that no one can come close to," observes Bouchard ebulliently. "It'll take them years to get to where we are, particularly at a price point."
At the turn of the century -- about when the passenger-car short-range obstacle-detection systems that the billion-dollar corporations were striving for in 1994 will be poised to kick in -- the little company could already be doing $140 million. But by then its impatient CEO no doubt will be gone, elbow deep in another salvage job. "Guys who are good at growing," he confesses, "aren't necessarily good at maintaining."
THE JOURNEY FROM R&D TO P&L
A VORAD Safety Systems time line
1971
Radar Control Systems (RCS) is founded in San Diego by inventor John W. Davis.
1972
General Motors orders two RCS collision- warning radar units for $53,800 and isn't heard from again for 20 years.
1987
An initial patent, protecting low-energy radar hardware, is issued.
1988
A second patent, protecting Doppler-effect expert-systems software, is issued. An early entrant into the expected multibillion-dollar intelligent-vehicle-highway-systems market, Allstate Insurance begins funding RCS.
1990
Davis fiddles and diddles but doesn't produce a product. Allstate recruits Massachusetts entrepreneur Paul J. Bouchard, 42, to replace Davis as CEO. The company has six employees and revenues of $180,000.
1991
Bouchard changes RCS into VORAD (an acronym for Vehicle On-Board Radar) Safety Systems and creates IVHS Technologies as a holding company. Product design is stabilized. The daring Department of Transportation secretary defies death in a VORAD-equipped automatic-braking passenger car. The company has 22 employees and revenues of $2 00.
1992
VORAD makes the first major sale of a collision-warning system, to Greyhound Bus Lines. The company has 30 employees and revenues of $1.1 million. Four more patents are filed.
1993
Allstate takes a 28% position in IVHS Technologies. Eaton Corp. buys 26% of IVHS, and M/A-Com 10%. Eighteen million dollars is raised. A joint-venture distributorship is formed with Eaton, called Eaton VORAD Technologies. Additional patents are filed. The company has 40 employees and revenues of $4.2 million.
1994
At a state-of-the-art conference in San Diego, Ford, TRW, GM, Rockwell, and other big R&D labs are told that VORAD has them beat, but good. Parent IVHS embarks on strategic side business, acquiring engine-diagnostics capability. Eaton VORAD submits a prototype collision-avoiding passenger car to Chrysler and is named one of four finalists as an OEM supplier. The company has 100 employees and revenues of $12.5 million.
1995
"Eventually, you'll be able simply to slip into your car, push a button, and be driven safely to your destination," Bouchard predicts. VORAD projects revenues of $26 million.
