WhisprWave® Small Craft Intrusion Barrier™ ("SCIB™") installation at the Port of Los Angeles was featured on the cover of Pacific Maritime Magazine's June 2008 Issue (See Below).

Labels: port of los angeles, port security barrier, port security barriers, psb, scib, small craft intrusion barrier, whisprwave

The Port of Los Angeles successfully deployed the WhisprWave® Small Craft Intrusion Barrier™ ("SCIB™") during a port security exercise yesterday.

Labels: port security barrier, port security barriers, scib, small craft intrusion barrier, whisprwave

We just took a look at our installation at USCG ISC Almeda CA, on Google Earth, and were amazed to see, that in addition to physical security, the Small Craft Intrusion Barrier™ (SCIB™) installation was also providing wave attenuation protection to the security zone (Note: Ripples in the channel and calm water inside the security zone).

The WhisprWave® line of products were originally invented and designed to serve as an erosion control solution and evolved, due to market demand, into a range port security applications. The attached photo demonstrates the dual capabilities of the system, better than we could have ever hoped.

We are continually amazed by the flexibility, survivability, scalability and range of applications of the WhisprWave® line of floating security barriers and floating breakwaters.

If you want to know more about how WhisprWave® can help you with your waterside security or erosion control solutions, please feel free to contact us at 908.233.7503 or info@whisprwave.com.

Labels: floating breakwater, floating security barrier, floating security barriers, port security barrier, port security barriers

Excerpt from "National Defense Magazine"

Small boats have been used by terrorists to carry out attacks around the world and they are likely to be employed as weapons in U.S. waterways, the government has recently warned.

Officials believe small vessels — defined as those less than 300 gross tons — are a potential threat because they are easy to obtain and there are few defenses in place to stop them from being used as a platform to launch an attack.

“We are very concerned about people doing harm with small vessels because we have breaches every week,” said Dana Goward, director of Coast Guard maritime domain awareness. An estimated 14 unidentified boats reach U.S. shores each week.

DHS and the Coast Guard have put the spotlight on the possibility of such an attack, emphasizing the need to protect U.S. waterways. But despite efforts to create new security measures, officials are failing to garner the support of small boat owners and operators because of the lack of a clear, cohesive plan.

Full Story

Labels: floating security barrier, floating security barriers, port security barrier, port security barriers, scib, whisprwave

Labels: jonathan b smith, michigan homeland security consortium, mihsc, wave dispersion technologies, whisprwave

Labels: pola, polb, port of long beach, port of los angeles, siemens building technologies, wave dispersion technologies, whisprwave

MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan B. Smith, 248.229.9010, jbsmith@whisprwave.com

Inc. Magazine Reveals Its 26th Annual List of America’s
500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies

Wave Dispersion Technologies, Inc. Ranks No. 203 on the 2007 Inc. 500
With Three-Year Sales Growth of 1,060%

NEW YORK, August 23, 2007 – Inc. magazine today ranked Wave Dispersion Technologies, Inc. No. 2003 (Click Here) on its 26th annual Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S.

“If you want to find out which companies are going to change the world, look at the Inc. 500,” said Inc. Editor Jane Berentson. “These are the most innovative, dynamic, fast-growth companies in the nation, the ones coming up with solutions to some of our most intractable ills, creating systems that let us conduct business faster and easier, and manufacturing products we soon discover we can’t live without. The Inc. 500 list is Inc. magazine’s tribute to American business ingenuity and ambition.”

Wave Dispersion is a company that has a patented product called WhisprWave®, which creates marine security barriers and also floating articulated breakwaters. The technology was developed in 1998 and was first installed at that time as a breakwater. Then in 2000, the U.S. Navy asked us to design a security barrier for protection of their ships and ports. Since the USS Cole was attacked in 2001 and the 9/11 attack, the company has grown substantially. Our product, called the Small Craft Intrusion Barrier or SCIB, is now the standard product in the world. It has been installed in the United States and also overseas.

The 2007 Inc. 500, as revealed in the September issue of Inc. magazine (on newsstands August 28 – October 2), reported aggregate revenue of $16 billion and median three-year growth of 939 percent. Most important, the 2007 Inc. 500 companies were engines of job growth, having created more than 64,064 jobs since those companies were founded.

Complete information on this year’s Inc. 500, including company profiles and a list of the fastest-growing companies that can be sorted by industry and region can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000.

Hottest Regions for Fastest-Growing Companies
After several years of losing ground to the Washington, D.C., area, California is flush with 81 Inc. 500 companies in 2007, up from 66 last year. Texas is home to 38 of the fastest-growing companies (up by six), followed by Virginia with 35 (up one company from last year), and New York with 26 (down by eight companies), and Florida with 26 (up one company).

Washington, D.C., is the top metropolitan area for the fifth consecutive year, with 40 of the fastest-growing companies, down slightly from 43 last year. New York City is a close second, with 38 (down four companies from last year), followed by San Francisco with 26 (up seven companies from last year), Los Angeles with 25 (no change), and Boston with 22 (down two companies).

Interestingly, finance and advertising--two industries often associated with New York--contributed a quarter of California’s total.

Hottest Industries for Fastest-Growing Businesses
The most notable median growth categories among Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing businesses is in the Environmental Services category (which grew by 1,425.4 percent on average), followed by Food & Beverage (which grew by 1336.8 percent on average), Media (which grew by 1,179 percent on average), Health (which grew by 1,105.5 percent on average), and Telecommunications (which grew by 1,056.5 percent on average).

The largest business category is IT Services, with 55 Inc. 500 companies in this category. Advertising & Marketing and Human Resources (both with 48 companies), Government Services (38 companies), and Software (37 companies) round out the top five industries ranked on the 2007 Inc. 500.

Industries reporting the highest total revenue from 2003 – 2006 are Health ($3.2 billion), Real Estate ($2.1 billion), Advertising & Marketing ($1.14 billion), Human Resources ($883 million), and Retail ($873.6 million).

Methodology
The 2007 Inc. 500 list measures revenue growth from 2003 through 2006. To qualify, companies had to be U.S.-based and privately held, independent – not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies – as of December 31, 2006, and have had at least $200,000 in revenue in 2003, and $2 million in 2006.

Companies can apply for next year’s Inc. 500 and Inc. 5,000 by registering with IncBizNet, the new social network for private companies that will launch this fall on Inc.com.

Introducing the Inc. 5,000 – the Inc. 500, Plus 4,500 New Fast-Growing Companies
This year, Inc. expanded the Inc. 500 list tenfold, to create the first-ever Inc. 5,000, the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy – America’s independent-minded entrepreneurs. Complete results of the Inc. 5,000 can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000, where you can scan profiles of honorees, view lists of the fastest-growing companies by industry and region, and sort the data according to your own parameters.

About WDT: http://www.whisprwave.com/
The Global Leader in Maritime Homeland Port Security Barrier & Buoy Protection SystemsWave Dispersion Technologies, Inc. (WDT) has developed the patented WhisprWave® floating articulated breakwater technology to afford erosion control protection to shoreline beaches, coastal marinas, anchorages, and other areas subject to destructive erosion wave / wake forces. The WhisprWave® barrier designs are currently installed, being demonstrated or being reviewed by many US Agencies including but not limited to the US Army Corp of Engineers "USACE", US Navy "USN", US Coast Guard "USCG", US Army “USA” and US Bureau of Reclamation “USBR” for applications that range from Homeland Security / Force Protection to Beach Erosion Protection to Marina Wave & Wake Protection.WhisprWave® breakwater technology has wide ranging maritime applications from erosion control to homeland security. The Company has been developing the technology for several years and holds 8 Domestic and International Patents for the WhisprWave®'s unique design and utility, with an additional 20 patents pending.

About Inc. magazine:
Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures, LLC., Inc. magazine (http://www.inc.com/) is the only major business magazine dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies that delivers real solutions for today’s innovative company builders. With a total paid circulation of 681,421, Inc. provides hands-on tools and market-tested strategies for managing people, finances, sales, marketing, and technology.

Labels: inc500, wave dispersion technologies, whisprwave

(PopSci.com) -- To security experts, the immense cargo ships that ferry more than 11 million containers into this country annually are potential Trojan horses -- each one could easily harbor a WMD, such as a dirty bomb.


Typically, only once the ships have been unloaded is their cargo subjected to random inspections and radiation scans. "There is an urgent need to effectively screen cargo before it reaches the ports," says Charles Meade, a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit think tank.

Now Florida start-up SeaAway has developed a security system that would move cargo screening 14 miles offshore to the safety of the open seas. The plan calls for pairs of 100-foot-wide platforms anchored outside the world's major ports. Equipped with an array of sensors and unmanned surveillance drones, the system monitors for chemical, biological and nuclear traces as ships travel between the platforms.

SeaAway proposes a passage fee of $20 per container -- roughly double average port fees -- to help authorities offset the $100-million cost of each system. Tax breaks for shippers could help curb costs, notes Steve Kroecker, SeaAway's founder and vice president.

Full Story

Labels: cargo screening, cargo security, port security barrier, seaaway

By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 24, 2007; A01
Full Story

Excerpt from the story:

After the Cole bombing, the Navy decided it would deploy hundreds of 82-foot-long, 8-foot-wide, floating rubberized barriers to prevent terrorists from getting close to its ships while in port. The barriers would be held in place by a system of anchors, large foam buoys and chains. A network of underwater sensors would detect potential threats.

NCIS had preferred contractors it wanted to hire for the job, auditors would find, and it did not want to undertake an elaborate and time-consuming open competition for the work.

So NCIS turned to the GSA and a program at the time reserved for small businesses that permitted government agencies to hire companies without seeking traditional bids. The program allowed government officials to buy products and services directly from companies after their prices for labor and overhead had been approved by GSA contracting officials. GSA collects user fees from companies for helping to facilitate those kinds of transactions.

In the boat-barrier case, the GSA, at the request of NCIS, selected Northern NEF of Colorado Springs as the prime contractor for the project, documents show.

Northern was a small technology firm -- small enough that did not have to compete under federal rules for government contracts unless they were worth more than $3 million. It had never worked on a boat-barrier project before, but it had worked for the Pentagon on other projects.

Northern was told by NCIS officials to hire P-Con Consulting of Alexandria. The company's sole employee was Patrick Condon, who already worked as a security consultant to NCIS. Condon received a title for his role in the project: deputy program manager for Navy boat barriers.

"Northern NEF officials said they had been directed by the Navy to procure the barriers through the consulting firm instead of dealing directly with the manufacturer," auditors wrote in a 2004 report. "We found documentary evidence that showed the consulting firm was the Navy's 'recommended' contractor."

P-Con, in turn, hired a company in England to manufacture the barriers and one in Northern Virginia to install them.

The former director of government programs for Northern, Dave Nelson, said in a recent interview that he did not know why NCIS selected his company or why his company was directed to hire P-Con.

"Northern played middleman," Nelson said.

Northern stayed below the $3 million threshold when it sought payments for the work from the GSA, invoices show. Each individual payment was approved by NCIS and the GSA as though they were separate projects, even though the work was being done under one contract.

Federal contracting regulations prohibit splitting up payments to avoid competition limits.

"Almost all of the over $53 million in boat barrier harbor tasks we analyzed were split to avoid the competitive threshold," GSA auditors wrote in their report.

Between September 2001 and February 2003, at least 30 invoices came in under the $3 million limit. Three examples:

· 55 boat barriers for $2.6 million on Sept. 28, 2001.
· 24 for $1.4 million on Oct. 1.
· 58 for $2.9 million on Oct. 12.

On May 9, 2002, three invoices came in for an identical amount -- $2,956,762 each. On Feb. 14, 2003, six invoices came in for $2,678,813 apiece.

GSA officials later told auditors they "believed each order represented a discrete boat-barrier system installed at a discrete harbor, but this was clearly not the case."

Nelson said Northern officials knew the project was being structured to stay beneath the $3 million cap. But he said company officials believed that it was being done properly by NCIS and GSA in the interests of speed and national security.

"It was pretty obvious what they were doing," said Nelson, who is now at another company. "We figured somebody who was in authority knew what they were doing. We didn't go out and try to win this work. It just came our way."

At each step in the process, Northern and P-Con received a percentage of the proceeds from the project.

For example, the base cost for each boat barrier was supposed to be $45,250. Northern charged a 4.8 percent fee for "acting as GSA's order administrator," the auditors said. P-Con charged a 7.5 percent on all expenses as a "Consultant Markup." The final cost to taxpayers for each boat barrier was $50,978.65, auditors estimated.

Even larger markups took place for the installation of the barriers and the buoys to hold them in place, documents show. The base cost for each buoy was supposed to be $31,000. The company responsible for installing the barriers added a 9.8 percent administrative fee and another unspecified 20 percent fee. Company officials told auditors the fees were the standard industry markup.

Northern charged another 5 percent fee. The final cost to taxpayers for each buoy was $42,825.68, documents show.

"Millions of dollars were wasted by compensating the contractors for doing little more than placing orders with other favored contractors to do the actual work," the auditors said.

Resources:

• Dunlop Fabrications
• GAO
• GSA
• Midlantic Security
• Naval Criminal Investigative Services
• Northern NEF (acquired by CompuCom)
• Washington Post

Labels: floating security barrier, floating security barriers, navy boat barrier, navy boat barriers, port security barrier, port security barriers

Barriers, something Clark said the DNR hasn't considered but might, have been erected around spillways at a number of lakes nationwide.

In Illinois, barriers have been added at Lakes Shelbyville and Carlyle in the past few years. The lakes are among the more than 400 across the country owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The barrier at Shelbyville, an 11,000-acre lake about 30 miles southeast of Decatur, was added a few years ago for $57,000, said Alan Dooley, spokesman for the Corps of Engineers St. Louis District.

Signs on the lake had long warned boaters and others to stay at least 600 feet away from the spillway that empties into the Kaskaskia River, Dooley said."

You do want to provide that additional, I guess you'd call it a passive safety measure," he added.

The Shelbyville barrier was built by a New Jersey company, Wave Dispersion Technologies Inc. It's essentially a long cable held on the top of the water by tightly spaced plastic floats.

At $200 to $250 a foot, company owner Dennis Smith said the barriers provide both security - blocking access to anyone who might want to damage or destroy a dam - and safety.

"Usually the dams just need a barrier where something won't float over it if (their boat is)
disabled," Smith said. "It'll stop somebody from drifting over."

Full Story

Labels: dam security, dnr, floating security barrier, port security barrier, scib, small craft intrusion barrier, us army corps of engineers, usace, wave dispersion technologies, whisprwave