Startup takes to water in rural Washington State- Mobilisa, Inc.

Three years ago, Nelson and Bonnie Ludlow got their first government contract: Make Washington state ferries wireless Internet hot spots.

It was just the beginning of an unusual route of building a startup business by making connections with government agencies. This spring, the Ludlows’ company, Mobilisa http://www.mobilisa.com/home.aspx, secured $4.8 million in contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Nelson Ludlow likes to tell the story of a group of colonels he met at Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia, a short drive from the Pentagon. They were interested in Mobilisa’s products until they learned where the company was based — Port Townsend.

"They looked at me as if it were on the Aleutian Islands," Nelson Ludlow recalled, laughing.

By Maria Hegstad

Medill News Service

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