Firm builds startups from Air Force ideas

SP Global seeks the best tech ideas that emerge from Wright-Patterson.

Innovations that could change the future of technology, health care and safety are coming out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. And entrepreneurs are noticing.

From a suite of offices in Riverside and Virginia, about 34 SP Global Inc. staffers try to find the most promising technologies emerging from the base, attempting to transform them into commercial opportunities.

So far, so good, the two executives leading that effort, Roger Mann, vice president-solutions for Chantilly, Va.-based SP Global, and Timothy Shaw, the company’s vice president-Midwest operations, told the Dayton Daily News.

Said Mann: “We’re genuinely all in for the economic development of this region.”

Both men have a background in government, with Shaw having served as an FBI special agent and Mann having served as a U.S. Navy submariner who was a weapons officer, a nuclear engineer and recipient of the Navy Achievement Award.

They bring that experience to SP Global when searching for ideas that can cross from military or first-responder development to civilian business.

Shaw cites SP’s relationships with local stakeholders like Dayton’s Entrepreneurs Center, the Wright Brothers Institute and others.

“All of those components working together are building and finding unique intellectual property,” Shaw said.

Shaw says SP can take the right intellectual property and take it to revenue in 18 to 24 months.

An early SP investment has been Dayton start-up GlobalFlyte Inc., where Shaw serves as president and chief operations officer and Mann as chief executive. The company launched in 2015 and offers a suite of situational awareness tools and apps to keep police and first responders connected.

The city of Fairborn and the University of Cincinnati rely on GlobalFlyte tools.