HIgh-Tech Company Grows in Danville

One start-up company chose to grow in Danville and produce fiber optic devices, including ones that will help defend military aircraft from missiles.

François Chenard, president and founder of IRflex Corporation, started leasing space in the Dan River Business Development Center in Ringgold Industrial Park West in September.

Chenard began applying for funding to help develop his company from the time he moved to town. In the past couple months, the company started bringing and constructing equipment in the incubator facilities.

IRflex has four employees now and hopes to bring in more equipment and start production this summer.

“We’re fortunate he found out about Danville in his early decision process,” said Linda Hutson Green, president of the Dan River Business Development Center. “The birth of the first U.S. mid-IR fiber optic manufacturing facility being done in Danville is significant.”

Chenard already secured contracts with prime contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense to develop fiber optic technology that works in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Mid-infrared deals more with heat. Near-infrared fiber is used in telecommunications.

Some lasers can be transmitted in the mid-infrared. Instead of transmitting lasers with mirrors or indirect means, those lasers could be transmitted via the specialty fiber that Chenard’s company will manufacture.

This “mid-IR” fiber and a pointer could send lasers, blinding heat-seeking shoulder-fired missiles and protect military aircraft and personnel. The company could develop a fiber optic switch to route laser beams through different transmission cables on the aircraft.

Chenard collaborated with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., with this fiber technology and founded IRflex in Herndon in 2006.

Chenard, who was born in St. Louis and raised in Canada, came back to the United States after serving as a lead fiber optic specialist at the National Optics Institute in Canada. He also founded a fiber optic manufacturing company called CorActive, which focused on telecommunication appli-cations.

He is no longer directly involved with CorActive, but is a shareholder.

IRflex was still a virtual company in the first few years and Chenard needed business partners and funding to actually set up shop. Through a business contact, Chenard found out about Danville and met Green.

He visited Danville and was welcomed by economic developers, city and county leaders and local representatives. Green, who had worked managing entrepreneurship and federal funding at the Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, knew what Chenard needed.

Chenard found it was less expensive to run a business in Danville than Northern Virginia. His customers would be across the country so location wasn’t an issue as long as transportation was accessible. The traffic-less drive to Greensboro or Raleigh airports is easy, he said.

Moving to Danville offered opportunities in grant funding and local incentives. Chenard and his wife had agreed he would move where he could fund his business. He still waits to hear back on a substantial grant he applied for, but is confident.

Green said the introduction of another high-tech company would enhance the Danville area for attracting other business and industry. IRflex adds a research element to the region that could attract knowledge workers, she added.

Chenard hopes to have 10 employees by the end of the year and plans to move into a facility twice as large in three years. He would employ 30 people in two years.

Chenard is optimistic about his future, envisioning a company making a high quality product at the best price and expanding into commercial applications.

“We’re just beginning,” Chenard said with a grin.