DEFENCE & SECURITY INDUSTRY GROUPS PRAISE FEDS’ ITB POLICY
The staff at Ottawa-based Gastops have been developing cutting-edge aircraft maintenace products for decades. PHOTOS BY MARK HOLLERON
Gastops gaining altitude with high-tech aircraft maintenance tools $4.7M investment from aerospace giant Lockheed Martin latest win for industry-leading Ottawa firm BY DAVID SALI david@obj.ca
MONDAY, MAY 22, 2017
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OBJ.CA
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or nearly four decades, engineers at a nondescript office in an east-end industrial park have been doing their part to serve their country in a unique way: by building cutting-edge diagnostic tools that help keep engines running smoothly in everything from military search-andrescue helicopters to fighter jets. They don’t get much fanfare, and they don’t seek it out either. Their company, Gastops, has been doing just fine despite garnering much less publicity than many of its fellow Ottawa tech trailblazers. Founded in 1979 by a group of Carleton University engineering grads led by former CEO Bernie MacIsaac, Gastops has quietly built a fervently loyal base of customers ranging from the Canadian and U.S.
militaries to manufacturers such as Pratt & Whitney, which makes engines for a host of military and commercial clients around the world. The 130-employee firm specializes in sensors that detect and measure metallic contaminants in engine oil – a sort of aviation “blood test” that allows technicians to spot an array of potential problems and stop them before they happen. As current chief executive Dave Muir explains, vital engine parts such as ball bearings eventually start to grind down and wear out, even with the presence of oil as a lubricant. His company’s products function like an early warning system that alerts mechanics to what parts of the engine are most at risk of failure. “What we’re trying to do is pick up the wear at a very early (stage) and prevent
the breakdown of the machine,” says the aerospace engineer, who graduated from Carleton and joined the company in 1981. Keeping aircraft engines humming is a dirty job, so to speak, but the folks at Gastops are happy to do it. “We’re kind of like a hidden success story within Ottawa,” says Mr. Muir, whose quiet, unruffled demeanor epitomizes the firm’s low-key approach. “We’ve been very successful.” Besides its Polytek Road headquarters, Gastops also has offices in Halifax and St. John’s as well as a partner firm, Gastops USA, based in Huntsville, Ala., to serve U.S. customers. About 100 people work at its main plant in Ottawa, where the firm conducts most of its market-leading research and development. The products they’ve created are turning heads throughout the aerospace industry, says Iain Christie, executive vice-president of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada. “This is global-leading technology,” he
The federal government took a lot of heat earlier this year for its decision to strip billions of dollars in near-term spending out of the national defence budget. But defence industry observers are also willing to give credit to the feds where it’s due, pointing to local firms such as Gastops as examples of Canadian military equipment suppliers that are thriving thanks to an initiative instituted by the previous Conservative regime in 2014 – the Industrial and Technological Benefits policy. In a nutshell, the program encourages clients of the Department of National Defence – aerospace firms such as Lockheed Martin, for example – to seek out made-in-Canada technology for major projects. Procurement proposals are scored partly on their Canadian content, including how bidders plan to incorporate smaller Canadian technology suppliers into the mix. Lockheed Martin’s relationship with Ottawa-based Gastops, which supplies sensors and maintenance equipment for the Canadian military’s C130-J Super Hercules aircraft, is a prime example of a local firm benefiting from the policy, experts say. Lockheed Martin recently announced it was investing nearly $5 million in Gastops under the ITB program to help its smaller partner continue to develop cutting-edge products. “It’s a Canadian company winning this investment on its own merits, but Lockheed Martin is being encouraged to look for companies to make this kind of investment in by the government’s policy,” said Iain Christie, executive vice-president of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada. Christyn Cianfarani, president of the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries, echoes those sentiments. “The Industrial and Technological Benefits program is one of the more powerful tools the government has available to incent business leaders to drive innovation in the defence industry,” she said in an e-mail to OBJ. “We are hearing from members that in recent contract awards, the amount of innovation and Canadian content – jobs in Canada – has increased from previous versions of submitted bids.” However, Ms. Cianfarani is less pleased with the Liberals’ recent decision to defer billions of dollars in capital expenditures for defence. “The constant shifts, whether re-profiling or lapsing funding, is harmful for the Canadian Armed Forces, industry and the government,” she said. “It adversely affects industry’s ability to plan and make investment and partnering decisions related to procurements; it makes Canada a riskier market than it needs to be.” Mr. Christie said he’s taking a wait-and-see approach to the feds’ spending plans, noting the government is still going through a review of its defence policy. “Defence spending is a bit of a moving target right now,” he said. “I think it’s a little bit premature to make a lot of pronouncements about government spending on defence until we’ve seen the policy review, because they have promised that will come with a plan for how spending is going to evolve over the next few years.”