Washington, D.C. — RL Associates Inc. of Chester, PA has been selected as one of the winners of the 2007 Tibbetts Awards. RL Associates Inc. will receive the award on Oct. 10 at the Westin Washington, located at 1400 M Street NW in Washington, D.C.
Named for Roland Tibbetts—the person acknowledged as the father of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program—these prestigious, national awards are made annually to those small firms, projects, organizations and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in SBIR achievement. RL Associates, Inc. is one of 55 companies in the U.S. to receive this award. They were selected from over 4,000 companies that receive contract and grants under the SBIR Program each year.
RL Associates, Inc. was founded in 1996 and has quickly emerged as a leader in the field of volume holographic optical elements. Dr. Richard Billmers, VP/CTO brings almost 20 years of experience in the fields of electro-optics and Lidar technologies. The 1997 award of RL Associates’ first SBIR contract from the Navy allowed him to found RL Associates, Inc. Dr. Billmers has built on that foundation and advanced the state of the art in both holographic filter technology and its application to real world systems.
The SBIR program has allowed RL Associates to expand from one self-employed individual, to a vibrant corporation with a Board of Directors, stock holders, 10 employees, and 3 offices. Without SBIR funding RL Associates would not have grown and thrived as it has. The SBIR program has allowed the Navy to request research tailored directly to its needs, to which RL Associates has responded successfully. The SBIR program is responsible for not only the technological innovations developed with its funding, but also for the economic impact RL Associates, Inc has made in the community, through new hires, summer internships and co-op positions. The SBIR programs have provided a rich training ground to advance the studies of students and interns working on SBIR-funded projects at RL Associates. This will lead to future technological breakthroughs as these students graduate and continue working in these fields.
The complete list of winners can be found at www.tibbettsawards.org .
For more information contact Marie Van Buren, 610-499-7525 or Jere Glover with the Small Business Technology Council at 202-662-9700.
Since its inception in 1995, SBTC (sbtc.org) has played a crucial role in promoting congressional legislation and federal regulations that aid small, technology-based companies—including re-authorization of the SBIR program.