Page 256 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

CORE VALUE: INTEGRITY
WHO IS PHYSICS INTERNATIONAL?
The Orion test facility was built to assess the potential effects of high-power microwave radiation (HPM) on military systems should a hostile country build such a weapon. There are several major military ranges in the US that test military equipment against a wide range of threats including HPM. The White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico tests include HPM, intense X-rays, shock, and blast. Physics International builds a variety of large-scale test simula- tors—like Orion—for such facilities in the US as well as the UK, which has been a defense partner since World War II.
Physics International has changed names several times over its forty-year history. Today, they are Applied Tech- nologies Inc. Division—a wholly-owned subsidiary of L3Harris—the sixth-largest defense contractor in the US. They continue to build high-power radiation simulators, from X-ray simulators to HPM and other radio wave simulators.
what Peterson does. It cost us all the profit on that $500,000 sale— and then some. In that meeting, I learned that there is no price tag on integrity. It’s who we are.”
When Physics International real- ized that Peterson was there for the long haul, they recommended another expert— an MIT-level specialist—who turned out to be golden. He located the problem with the vendor’s capacitor and a number of other issues—all un- related to the Cat engines. With the help of Peterson technicians, he was able to reconfigure the capacitor and get it to work. “In the end, we built our own test bench and tested the capacitor, which finally worked exactly
as the customer wanted,” says Goggin.
Years later, Peterson finally
discovered who the project’s
end-user was: Britain’s Ministry of Defense. In the ensuing fifteen years, the Orion Project garnered “a sound reputation in the testing community,” according to Peter Sincerny, director of engineering for Applied Tech- nologies Inc.—the same Physics International company now owned by large defense contractor L3Harris.
254 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG