Home of the Drones: Bingen, Wash.

BINGEN, Wash. -- Think of it as Bingen's Boeing.

Insitu, the firm that started in a garage 15 years ago, last year generated $148 million in revenue and provided more than 500 jobs, mostly in rural Klickitat and Skamania counties.

Its product: drones that can fly thousands of feet above enemy territory sending back video and other data to military command centers.

Images taken by one of Insitu's drones were recently used by the Navy as it plotted the rescue of an American cargo ship captain kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Africa, Insitu's vice president of business development, Steve Nordlund, said in a recent interview at the company's headquarters off Steuben Street, the main drag through Bingen.

With only a 10-foot wingspan, it strongly resembles a model aircraft, but its production plays a huge role in the Columbia Gorge economy. Insitu is Klickitat County's biggest employer by a wide margin and brings in higher-paid professionals, such as engineers.

"It's a huge engine as far as creating excellent, living-wage jobs," said Mike Canon, the county's economic development director. The company declined to disclose payroll.

If all Insitu employees -- not counting local contractors -- lived in one place, they would almost fill the town of Bingen, population 680.

When Insitu started in 1994, its founders -- Tad McGeer and Andy von Flotow -- focused on technology to track offshore weather to improve forecasting. The drone carries a camera or infrared sensor that returns data to a monitoring station.

But after the terrorism attacks of September 11, 2001, the company found a new niche: providing its proven technology to the military.

The company's product fits between larger and smaller drones that were already on the market. Its drones can fly for about 24 hours and rise to above 16,000 feet.

Once its wings are folded in, the whole device fits inside its own suitcase-like container weighing a total of 105 pounds. The nine modules -- camera, motor, wings and other elements -- are manufactured at various locations across the Gorge and then assembled at a single plant.

A launch takes about a second and unlike other drones, it doesn't require a runway. Each aircraft travels with a crew of Insitu workers who launch and retrieve it using a catapult and skyhook tether. The craft travels about eight feet along the launcher before being thrown into the sky at 50 mph.

The military, which buys both drones and support services from the company, does the analyzing of the data collected through the camera or infrared sensor mounted on the drone's nose.

Lindsay Voss, a defense industry analyst with consulting firm Frost and Sullivan in San Antonio, Texas, said Insitu's development of a weather-tracking drone put it at the front of its manufacturing sector when the Department of Defense needed new tools to fight terrorism.

"They're at the top of their game in terms of their niche and trying to make decisions that will keep them ahead of the curve," Voss said.

As the United States' military demands flatten or decline, the company will need to adjust. It recently announced military contracts with Canada and Singapore.

And the drones' uses can extend beyond the military. The same technology that spots pirates could be used to track ice floes in oil-drilling areas, forecast the spread of forest fires and help police track fleeing criminals.

Development in these area has been slow across the industry, in part because of the military demand and also because the Federal Aviation Administration would need to decide how manned and unmanned aircraft share the sky.

Nordlund vaguely says that the company's next research area will be robotics, but he didn't want to go into detail.

Insitu is one of only a handful of defense-related contractors in Central Washington.

Amtech, a maker of Humvee tops and other composite materials, expanded to Wapato from Olympia in 2003. GE Aviation, which has a plant in Yakima, produces components for both military and commercial aircraft.

Congressional earmarks -- money lawmakers can independently set aside for special projects -- have allowed Insitu to do research that would have taken away from contract revenue, Nordlund said.

Insitu received a $3.5 million earmark in the 2008 defense budget. The money was designated for research and demonstration to the Air Force of Insitu's larger Integrator drone. Another $3.2 million came in fiscal year 2009, for development of a shipboard drone for the Navy, according to congressional budget notes.

Congressman Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, had sought another $5 million since those allocations, but no earmark money is expected for the upcoming fiscal year, company officials said.

"He has been a strong supporter over the years," Hastings' spokesman Charlie Keller said, noting the company's importance both for the local economy and the military's anti-terrorism efforts.

The company started in the Columbia Gorge because that's where its founders already lived.

It now has 21 locations across the Gorge -- a headquarters in Bingen, office space down the street, an old schoolhouse in White Salmon, etc.

Company leaders have talked about the need to consolidate most operations to a single campus.

Nordlund said they've identified possible property for expansion, but don't want to lose the current focus on building and shipping a good product.

Last fall, when Boeing took over Insitu as a wholly owned yet independent subsidiary, the move sent shudders through Bingen and White Salmon as residents and business owners wondered whether the company would leave the region.

Nordlund says it seems like he spends more time killing that rumor than any other.

Nordlund, who joined the company in 2001, says Boeing likes the Gorge and plans to stay.

"You have all the desires of the big city, without the big city," he said.

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