Lancaster technology start-up sets value on time

Act now, worry later.

So says Randall Thomas, president of Consonance Technologies Inc., a Lancaster County start-up, who believes he added to his new business' start-up time by being overly cautious.

"In the beginning there's a lot of little things you spend a lot of time on that you don't need to," Thomas said. "It's better to make a decision and risk a mistake, but have that decision made, rather than vacillate."

Technically, the company has been in business since April 1997, but it's only now starting to release the product and earn revenues. At this early stage of the game, Thomas declined to say how much revenues total. But he said the Milton Hershey School is one of Consonance's big test sites.

What cost Consonance Technologies so much time was developing, financing and marketing the Reinholds-based company's automated technology for checking lighting systems. Encased in a unit about the size of a deck of cards, the technology installed inside light poles in places such as parking lots and garages increases safety at a relatively low cost. It warns a central system about problems such as faulty lamps and impending lamp failures.

The beauty of the Lighting and Appliance Supervision System, or LASS, is that it's wireless, Thomas said. Communication is carried over existing power lines and requires less manpower than the usual system of sending out repair crews just to check whether the lights are on. Consonance Technologies can monitor a point for a one-time, upfront cost of under $100, compared to status monitoring, which has been done traditionally at a minimum of $300 a point, he said.

At present, the remote sensors are being used to monitor lighting systems only, but the technology has future industrial applications. It can monitor virtually any power-drawing equipment, including refrigerators and heating, ventilation and airconditioning systems, Thomas said.

The Ben Franklin Technology Center of Central and Northern PA Inc. has provided grants to Consonance for three years running, with this year's grant totaling $125,000.

"They have some really cool technology," said regional director Stephen Brawley. "They have some sites in this area, and it's testing out well."

Overall, Brawley added, the center is seeing "a ton" of early-stage start-ups, many of them information-technology companies. "It seems like a lot more folks are taking that start-up business opportunity risk. Maybe it's a reflection of the strength of the economy and the money that's available."

Consonance Technologies' three principals are Thomas, Gerry Gobright, vice president of sales, and Edmund Nowicki, vice president of engineering. The three met while working at GAI-Tronics Corp., a firm near Reading that provides communications equipment for oil refineries and offshore rigs.

The principals share equal ownership, and they're helped by a group of partner businesses acting as "angel investors," Thomas said. Those include Bulova Technologies, Lancaster, which manufactures Consonance's printed circuitboard assemblies, and Anderson Advertising, Berks County, which is helping launch the product in the marketplace.

Speaking of the partner businesses, Thomas pointed to the concept of "agile manufacturing." Historically, he said, large manufacturers employ workers in a variety of different departments to make and sell their products. Agile manufacturing, on the other hand, blends the services of a group of independent companies with a symbiotic relationship, he said. Such relationships can lead to some surprising results. For example, Consonance Technologies' start-up has led to a start-up in another state, LASS Texas Inc., which sells the product in Texas and Oklahoma.

"We think it's a product that will revolutionize the maintenance of exterior parking lot and roadway lighting," said Lance Charriere, a partner in the Dallas-Fort Worth start-up.

"We owe it all to the Internet," he added. "That's how my partner found it. We've been working with them for a year and a half now."

The partner, D.H. Jones, recalled that he was using a search engine to look for live monitoring technologies when he came across Consonance's web site. "They had what I was looking for," Jones said. "That's how it started, and I picked up the phone and called Randy."

Charriere and his partner, Jones also own a more established business, RWC Enterprises, a 10-employee electrical contracting company that installs exterior parking lot and roadway lighting systems.

While Consonance Technologies sees this relationship as a success, it has made mistakes along the way, Thomas acknowledged. But getting back to the issue of lost time, he said even the mistakes were of value.

"It doesn't matter that you did it wrong, because you found out how to do it fight sooner. I have that philosophy now, but I didn't have it then," he said.