Beyond the Space Coast
The story of Florida ’ s space industry reaches beyond Brevard County . One such manufacturing company supporting the Florida space industry is Southern Manufacturing Technologies ( SMT ), located in Tampa .
SMT manufactures valves and parts for machines , including satellites , space probes and more . The company ’ s work is highly technical as some customer designs call for parts to be incorporated into explosive charges within a valve to trigger a reaction for a specific need . SMT supplied parts to a Mars rover which allowed its solar panels to open , and to New Horizons , a probe sent to Pluto to study the dwarf planet .
“ When we started we were focused on the aircraft and aerospace industry ,” said Roy Sweatman , SMT owner . “ In 1983 , we had five people and we really didn ’ t know these industries would develop quite the way they have .”
SMT now employs more than 100 people and Sweatman has seen the importance of introducing students to manufacturing in order to grow a local pipeline of talent for years to come . The company has hosted five schools and is passionate about professional development as people with specific skills for emerging technologies are not easily found throughout the country .
“ As we ’ ve grown bigger and gotten more sophisticated in what we are doing , it opens up more and more doors , and parts to manufacture become more complex ,” said Sweatman . “ But it also requires higher skills from our people .”
Another Corridor company is no stranger to training , and is working on solutions to problems posed by deep space travel .
Located in Seminole County ’ s Geneva , Simiosys focuses on providing mixed-reality experiences – real , virtual and imagined – for varied industries . The company ’ s latest project is translating its work in effective therapies for aphasia patients to astronauts suffering from isolation in deep space .
42 florida . HIGH . TECH 2017