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June 02, 2014 | Tom Ballard

Green Arc Labs licenses Omni Jaw 5 from Y-12 National Security Complex

Green Arc LabsBy Tom Ballard, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Initiatives, Pershing Yoakley & Associates, P.C.

They competed against each other during last December’s “Y-12 Innovation Competition,” but they are now teamed-up to grow Chattanooga-based Green Arc Labs.

Casey York presented his concept for Green Arc at The Enterprise Center event for start-ups, while Jake Gish discussed his technology to address a burgeoning national problem created by feral hogs. Today, York is Chief Executive Officer of Green Arc, and Gish is the Chief Operating Officer.

Together, they are bringing the concept for Green Arc – an umbrella for technology transfer, manufacturing, and technology development – to life with their initial product named the Omni Jaw 5. It is a technology Green Arc recently licensed from the Y-12 National Security Complex.

“It is a hydraulic tool for cutting rivets off of surfaces,” York told us during a recent interview. In fact, he says it was developed as a tool to facilitate demolition of buildings at the Department of Energy’s old K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Oak Ridge.

“You can cut-off the ends and trap the toxic materials,” York says in explaining the value of the tool for many applications. Instead of simply grinding the rivets like many devices on the market today, it sheers the rivet and traps the “bad stuff” such as chromium and nickel.

“You can use the Omni Jaw 5 for anything with rivets . . . planes, trains and automobiles,” York noted.

There is already a prototype, and Green Arc is working with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s contractor to secure final engineering drawings for a commercial version.

Once the specifications are received, York says Green Arc will identify a local manufacturer. Making the tool in Chattanooga is important to the company.

“We’re planning an extremely lean launch,” he says, adding that Green Arc expects to have the Omni Jaw 5 on the commercial market within six months.

“As we’re set-up right now, we’re looking initially at (customers in) shipbuilding and construction demolition over three stories,” York says. “In the future, we plan to compete with the Jaws of Life and cable cutting devices.”

The Omni Jaw 5 is part of a larger strategy that York pitched during The Enterprise Center event in December. He describes Green Arc Lab’s big picture as “turning young guys into young entrepreneurs,” doing so in part by drawing on really strong technology.

One of those technologies is Gish’s “Pig Punisher Platform.” After that, who knows, but the Green Arc team is clearly well-positioned in a city viewed as one of the rapidly growing entrepreneurial communities in the country.

 


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