Faces of Technology
Surveying the
Sea
Ever wonder about the quality of your water?
David Fries thinks about it every day. What
contaminants does it contain? What impact
does it have on our environment? How can
we better monitor the quality of our water and
make it safer? Thanks to his innovative suite of
sensor technologies, Fries is well on his way to
answering those questions.
Fries is the co-founder and chief technology
officer of Spyglass Technologies, a St.
Petersburg-based firm that specializes in
measuring the biochemistry of aquatic
environments. Although monitoring and
measuring water quality is nothing new, the
way Fries is doing it is.
An original member of the Center for Ocean
Technology at the University of South Florida,
Fries has done extensive work with mass
spectrometry, a method of identifying the
chemical makeup of a particular sample—in
this case, a sample of water. However, as Fries
continued his work with mass spectrometry, he
thought, “Why can’t we measure the chemistry
out in the field, rather than in a lab?”
“I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t put a
mass spectrometer in the water,” said Fries.
“So, I continued to develop the technology
to make it more mobile, and eventually, we
formed Spyglass Technologies.”
Spyglass Technologies’ Underwater Mass
Spectrometer can be used for a variety
of applications, from monitoring beach
water quality to testing a deep-sea aquatic
environment. The entire process is completed
right out on the water, saving both time and
resources in what is usually an expensive
endeavor.
While Fries’ technology has a number of
diverse applications, he and his team are
currently focusing on one area in particular:
the oil and energy sector.
“With such a large network of oil pipes in
David Fries
Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer | pyglass Technologies,
S
www.spyglasswater.com
Education:
B.S. in Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh;
M.S. in Chemistry, University of South Florida
Company:
Based in St. Petersburg, Spyglass Technologies provides an
expanding set of solutions for automated water monitoring,
including field-deployable, portable chemical and biological
sensor systems and samplers, as well as detection kits,
methods and instruments for the laboratory.
the Gulf of Mexico, we can use our robots to ‘sniff’ o ȁ