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THE BEGINNING

Three key participants in creating the IFE industry’s fi rst fully fiber-optic-based AVOD system are sitting in a conference room in Lumexis Corporation’s offices explaining to an interested observer how it all came to be. They don’t need much prodding.

Doug Cline says he was enjoying retirement in 2003 when he and Rich Salter were approached by some venture capitalists with an idea to start a new IFE manufacturing company using fiber-optic technology. “Yes,” says Salter, “Doug and I had been acquainted with each other for years, starting way back in the late 1970s while competing against each other in the VLF/Omega navigation systems market, but we hadn’t worked together. Then there was this really key guy, a young technologist already working with the VCs, named Dr. Gregory C. Petrisor. Greg is one of those rare talents who readily assimilates new technologies and can quickly identify those few key elements out of many in solving any given problem.”

Cline says the trio understood that there was one unresolved problem with in-seat AVOD systems, and it was huge—literally and fi guratively: the systems were massive, complex, heavy, and expensive to buy/maintain. Each one was
a different, proprietary design, having been developed before IT and IPTV standards were available. The Lumexis team’s answer, a dozen or more years after the advent of in-seat IFE, was to license and bolt together the latest standardized video server hardware and software from the IPTV and telecomm industries.

For the next three and a half years, the three refi ned the fi ber-optic system design, presenting their ideas to airlines and venture capitalists, and attending tradeshows. Wherever they went, they found great enthusiasm for the product, but not the risk. “Almost every airline told us the same thing: After you get a launch customer and have an STC for the system, we want to be your second customer!”

Still, some trusting friends took the very high risk of investing their personal funds with the trio. This support impressed the founding VCs enough to produce a total capital raise suffi cient to pay for a technology demonstration system. The three approached Concept Development Incorporated of Irvine, CA, and the two companies began a somewhat unstructured, but collaborative and highly creative design effort based on Dr. Petrisor’s ideas. In early 2006, with their small demo system in hand, Cline and Salter began a mad dash around the world to visit many of the major international airlines. The sales tour ended up at the WAEA Show in Palm Beach that September where, after hundreds of presentations to anybody who was willing to hear them, they struck pay dirt. A US Airways procurement team, headed by two entrepreneurially-minded marketing and IT vice presidents, listened and liked the idea. Their endorsement and the airline’s support resulted in funding led by PAR Capital Management of Boston and continued funding up through the present date.

THE LUMEXIS TEAM

Today the company has offi ces close beside Orange County’s John Wayne Airport, in the heart of the IFE capital of the world. Its management roster reads like a yearbook of Sony Trans Com and Airshow alumni. Chief Operating Offi cer Lou Sharkey explained in joining the discussion, “Every one of these managers came from two companies totally focused on customer service—Sony Trans Com and Airshow. This may be a young company, but it is made up entirely of veteran IFE managers with more than 200 years of directly applicable IFE experience. Nobody has less than a dozen years in this industry—several have decades—and their experience with in-seat IFE and cabin display systems has been directly applied to produce a uniquely serviceable system.” It is impressive to this observer that the knowledge and reputation of the team, including such people as Director of Quality Assurance William Franklin and Manager of Repair Services Cliff Vanderhyden, led to FAA authorization of the company’s repair shop within only a week of receiving its fi rst STC in March of this year. Similarly, the company successfully initiated and passed an MPAA audit within just six weeks of Director of Content Integration Services Lee Casey’s joining the team.

“We really push for full participation and input on the product design by these very experienced, functional managers,” adds CTO Salter. “For instance, Dan Riddersen, Director of Customer Support, previously had managed the support of Sony Trans Com’s (now Rockwell Collins’) Passport AVOD system from its introduction until we enticed him to join us last year.” As an example, he cites Riddersen’s long unhappiness with the high cost to an airline of being required to have an expensive technician at the aircraft to monitor every lengthy content load. He successfully lobbied the development team to assure that the FTTS™ content would load automatically infl ight, even as the system is delivering entertainment to all passengers.

Cline is particularly enthusiastic about the company’s engineering team, which he describes as exceptionally talented, cohesive, and collaborative. “Our team is composed not only of our full-time employees, but of some truly talented and supportive contractors both in software and hardware design.” He credits Director of Software Services Rolf Wicklund and his team with having created a uniquely user-friendly system that is winning accolades across the industry. He is also quick to again highlight Chief Systems Architect Greg Petrisor and his team for structuring and implementing “hugely benefi cial innovations in core operating system architecture.”

Lou Sharkey steps in to note that all of these managers come from successful associations with the founders. “Rich knew that John Holyoake (Chief Engineer) had numerous successes during their work together at Airshow. So he brought John into the team fully confi dent he could do these amazing things in packaging unprecedented monitor functionality. Doug and I collaborated in landing former Sony Trans Com Inc. (STCI) associates Jack Sunabe (Director of Program Management) and Eddie Truxton (Principal Program Manager), two key players now facing the additional challenge of overseeing the burgeoning RFP/RFQ response process. Similarly, as the demands for riding herd on development grew exponentially, Doug immediately appealed to Kaz Takata (Manager of Engineering), as a talent proven in STCI’s Passport AVOD development.”

Cline characterizes Lumexis today as closely approaching one of those “idealized American entrepreneurial experiences. It truly started as a roller-coaster ride with energizing successes invariably followed by yet another obstacle. In the beginning, with just three of us working part-time, each new hurdle seemed insurmountable. But with the addition of each carefully chosen new manager, those hurdles became easier to overcome. So today, we have built a deep and unshakeable foundation.”

The Lumexis FTTS™AVOD system is now successfully fl ying as an FAA-certifi ed system in a single US Airways A320. Yet there is no question that its impact extends throughout the IFE industry, as stories appear almost daily in industry publications about its promise of lighter weight and lower cost. But for this publication, the real story seems more about its people—The Lumexis Team—that seems to love to come to work, to collaborate on innovation, and to challenge the IFE status quo.